
Glass 
Book 



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4^^^M-i. 






DEDI0ATIGN. 



TO THE 
SURVIVING SUFFERERS 

OF THE «*• 

APPALLING CALAMITY AT JOHNSTOWN 

AND 

NEIGHBORING VILLAGES 

THIS WORK 

WHICH RELATES THE THRILLING STORY 

OF THE GREAT DISASTER 

IS DEDICATED. 



Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
in 2010 witin funding from 
Tine Library of Congress 



Iittp://www.arcliive.org/details/jolinstownliorroro02walk 



T h: H 

JOHNSTOWN HORROR!!! 

OR 

VALLEY OF DEATH, 

BEING 

A COMPLETE AND THRILLINC ACCOUNT OFTHE AWFUL 
FLOODS AND THEIR APPALLINC RUIN. 

CONTAINING 

Graphic Descriptions of the Terrible Rush of Waters; the 
great Destruction of Houses, Factories, Churches, Towns, 
and Thousands of Human Lives ; Heart-rending Scenes 
of Agony, Separation of Loved Ones, Panic- 
stricken Multitudes and their Frantic 
Eiforts to Escape a Horrible Fate. 

COMPRISING 

THRILLING TALES OF HEROIC DEEDS; NARROW ESCAPES 

FROM THE JAWS OF DEATH; FRIGHTFUL HAVOC BY 

FIRE; DREADFUL SUFFERINGS OF SURVIVORS; 

PLUNDERING BODIES OF VICTIMS. ETC. 

TOGETHER WITH 

Magnificent Exhibitions of Popular Sympatliy; Quick 

Aid from Q\rery City and State; Millions of Dollars 

Sent for the Relief of the Stricken Sufferers. 



By JAMES HEKBEKT WALKEK, 

THE WELL KNOWN AUTHOR. 



FULLY ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES OF THE GREAT CALAMITY. 



OHEORE & NICKEKSOISr, 

MINNEAPOLIS', MINN.; STEVENSPOINT, WIS. 



T|51 

■ T'jVl 



Copyrighted, 1889. 



PREFACE 



®I^HE whole country has been profoundly startled at the 
"*■ Terrible Calamity which has swept thousands of human 
beings to instant death at Johnstown and neighboring villages. 
The news came with the suddenness of a lightning bolt falling 
from the sky. A romantic valley, filled with busy factories, 
flourishing places of business, multitudes of happy homes and 
families, has been suddenly transformed into a scene of awful 
desolation. Frightful ravages of Flood and Fire have pro- 
duced in one short hour a destruction which surpasses the 
records of all modern disasters. No calamity in recent times 
has so appalled the civilized world. What was a peaceful, 
prosperous valley a little time ago is to-day a huge sepulchre, 
filled with the shattered ruins of houses, factories, banks, 
churches, and the ghastly corpses of the dead. 

This book contains a thrilling description of this awful 
catastrophe, which has shocked both hemispheres. It depicts 
with graphic power the terrible scenes of the great disaster, 
and relates the fearful story with masterly effect. 

The work treats of the great storm which devastated the 
country, deluging large sections, sweeping away bridges, 
swelling rivulets to rivers, prostrating forests, and producing 
incalculable damage to life and property; of the sudden rise 



xu 



PREFACE. 



in the Conemaugh River and tributary streams, weakening the 
dam thrown across the fated valley, and endangering the live« 
of 50,000 people; of the heroic efforts of a little band of men 
to stay the flood and avert the direful calamity ; of the swift 
ride down the valley to warn the inhabitants of their impend- 
ing fate, and save them from instant death ; of the breaking 
away of the imprisoned waters after all efforts had failed to 
h old them back ; of the rush and roar of the mighty torrent, 
plunging down the valley with sounds like advancing thunder, 
reverberating like the booming of cannon among the hills ; of 
the frightful havoc attending the mad flood descending with 
iacredible velocity, and a force which nothing could resist ; of 
the rapid rise of the waters, flooding buildings, driving the 
terrified inhabitants to the upper stories and roofs in the des- 
perate effort to escape their doom ; of hundreds of houses crash- 
ing down the surging river, carrying men, women and children 
beyond the hope of rescue; of a night of horrors, multitudes 
dying amid the awful terrors of flood and fire, plunged under 
the wild torrent, buried in mire, or consumed in devouring 
flames; of helpless creatures rending the air with pitiful screams 
crying aloud in their agony, imploring help with outstretched 
hands, and finally sinking with no one to save them. 

Whole families were lost and obliterated, perishing together 
in a watery tomb, or ground to atoms by floating timbers and 
wreck; households were suddenly bereft — some of fathers 
others of mothers, others of children, neighbors and friends; 
frantic efforts were made to rescue the victims of the flood, 
render aid to those who were struggling against death, and 
mitigate the terrors of the horrible disaster. There were noble 



PREFACE. 



iJClll 



acts of heroism, strong men and frail women and children 
putting their own lives in peril to save those of their loved 
ones. 

The terrible scene at Johnstown bridge, where thousands 
were consumed was the greatest funeral pyre known in the his- 
tory of the world. It was ghastly work — that of recovering the 
bodies of the dead; dragging them from the mire in which 
they were imbedded, from the ruins in which they were 
crushed, or from the burning wreck which was consuming 
them. Hundreds of bodies were mutilated and disfigured be- 
yond the possibility of identifying them, all traces of individual 
form and features utterly destroyed. There were multitudes of 
corpses awaiting coffins for their burial, putrefying under the 
sun, and filling the air with the sickening stench of death. 
There were ghouls who robbed the bodies of the victims, 
stripping off their jewels — even cutting off fingers to obtain 
rings, and plundering pockets of their money. 

Summary vengeance was inflicted upon prowling thieves* 
some of whom were driven into the merciless waters to perish, 
while others were shot or hanged by the neck until they were 
dead. The burial of hundreds of the known and unknown, 
without minister or obsequies, without friend or mourner, with- 
out surviving relatives to take a last look or shed a tear, was 
one of the appalling spectacles. There was the breathless sus- 
pense and anxiety of those who feared the worst, who waited 
in vain for news of the safety of their friends, and at last were 
compelled to believe that their loved ones had perished. 

The terrible shock attending the horrible accounts of the 
great calamity, was followed by the sudden outburst and ex- 



XIV 



PREFACE. 



hibition of universal grief and sympathy. Despatches from 
the President, Governors of States, and Mayors of Cities, 
announced that speedy aid would be furnished. The magnifi- 
cent charity that came to the rescue with millions of dollars, 
immense contributions of food and clothing, personal services 
and heroic efforts, is one impressive part of this graphic story. 
Rich and poor alike gave freely, many persons dividing their 
last dollar to aid those who had lost their all. 

These thrilling scenes are depicted, and these wonderful facts 
are related, in The Johnstown Horror, by eye-witnesses who 
saw the fatal flood and its direful effects. No book so in- 
tensely exciting has ever been issued. The graphic story has 
an awful fascination, and will be read throughout the land. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
The Appalling News, . . . . , , .17 

CHAPTER n. 
Death and Desolation, ....,, 50 

CHAPTER III. 
The Horrors Increase, ...... 74 

CHAPTER IV. 
Multiplication of Terrors, . . . , , , 104 

CHAPTER V. 
The Awfiil Work of Death . . . , . . Ji6 

CHAPTER VI. 
Shadows of Despair, ...... 129 

CHAPTER VII. 
Burial of the Victims, . . . . , ,146 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Johnstown and its Industries, ..... 154 

CHAPTER IX. 
A View of the Wreck, ...... 164 



CHAPTER X. 
Thrilling Experiences, ... ... 182 

CHAPTER XI. 

New Tales of Horror, . .... 208 

CHAPTER Xn. 
Pathetic Scenes, . . . ... . 246 

CHAPTER Xni. 

Digging for the Dead, . . . . . . 270 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Hairbreadth Escapes, ...... 28S 

CHAPTER XV. 
Terrible Pictures of Woe, ...... 334 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Stories of the Flood, . . . . . . 380 

CHAPTER XVII. 
One Week after the Great Disaster, . . , . 432 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
A Walk.Thrqugh the Valley of Death, ... 455 

CHAPTER XIX. 

A Day of Work and Worship, . . . . . 479 

CHAPTER XX. 
Millions of Money for JohnstoxVn, ... . 489 










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TEARING DOWN HOUSES IN JOHNSTOWN. 





SOLDIERS GUARDING A HUNGARIAN THIEF. 



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RELIEF CORPS CROSSING THE 



ROPE BRIDGE. 




SEARCHING FOR LOST RELATIVES. 




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The Johnstown horror 



OR 



Valley of D|itli. 

CHAPTER I. 
Thie Appalling News, 

On the advent of Summer, June ist, the country 
was horror-stricken by the announcement that a ter- 
rible calamity had overtaken the inhabitants of Johns- 
town, and the neighboring villages. Instantly the 
v^hole land was stirred by the startling news of this 
great disaster. Its appalling magnitude, its dreadful 
suddenness, its scenes of terror and agony, the fate 
of thousands swept to instant death by a flood as 
frightful as that of the cataract of Niagara, awakened 
the profoundest horror. No calamity in the history 
of modern times has so appalled the civilized world. 

The following graphic pen-picture will give the 
reader an accurate idea of the picturesque scene of 
the disaster : 

Away up in the misty crags of the Alleghanies some 
tiny rills trickle and gurgle from a cleft in the mossy 

(17) 



18 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

rocks. The drippling waters, timid perhaps in the 
bleak and lonely fastness of the heights, hug and cod- 
dle one another until they flash into a limpid pool. 
A score of rivulets from all the mountain side babble 
hither over rocky beds to join their companions. 
Thence in rippling current they purl and tinkle down 
the gentle slopes, through bosky nooks sweet with the 
odors of fir tree and pine, over meads dappled with the 
scarlet snap-dragon and purple heath buds, now paus- 
ing for a moment to idle with a wood encircled lake, 
now tumbling in opalescent cascade over a mossy 
lurch, and then on again in cheerful, hurried course 
down the Appalachian valley. 

None stays their way. Here and there perhaps 
some thrifty Pennsylvania Dutchman coaxes the saucy 
stream to turn his mill-wheel and every league or so 
it fumes and frets a bit against some rustic bridge. 
From these trifling tourneys though, it emerges only 
the more eager and impetuous in its path toward the 
towns below. 

The Fatal River. 

Coming nearer, step by step, to the busy haunts of 
men, the dashing brook takes on a more ambitious air. 
Little by little it edges its narrow banks aside, drinks 
in the waters of tributaries, swells with the copious 
rainfall of the lower valley. From its ladder in the 
Alleghanies it catches a glimpse of the steeples of 
Johnstown, red with the glow of the setting sun. 
Again it spurts and spreads as if conscious of its new 
importance, and the once tiny rill expands into the 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 19 

dignity of a river, a veritable river, with a name of its 
own. Big with this sounding symbol of prowess it 
rushes on as if to sweep by the teeming town in a 
flood of majesty. To its vast surprise the way is 
barred. The hand of man has dared to check the will 
of one that up to now has known no curb save those 
the forest gods imposed. For an mstant the waters, 
taken aback by this strange audacity, hold themselves 
in leash. Then, like erl king in the German legends, 
they broaden out to engulf their opponent. In vain 
they surge with crescent surface against the barrier of 
stone. By day, by night, they beat and breast in 
angry impotence against the ponderous wall of ma- 
sonry that man has reared, for pleasure and p ofit, to 
stem the mountain stream. 

The Awful Kush of Waters. 

Suddenly, maddened by the stubborn hindrance, the 
river grows black and turgid. It rumbles and threat- 
ens as if confident of an access of strength that laughs 
at resistance. From far up the hillside comes a sound, 
at first soft and soothing as the fountains of Lindaraxa, 
then rolling onward it takes the voluminous quaver of 
a distant waterfall. Louder and louder, deeper and 
deeper, nearer and nearer comes an awful crashing 
and roaring, till its echoes rebound from the crags of 
the AUeghanies like peals of thunder and boom of 
cannon. 

On, on, down the steep valley trumpets the torrent 
into the river at Jamestown. Joined to the waters 
from the cloud kissed summits of its source, the exul- 



20 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

tant Conemaugh, with a deafening din, dashes Its way 
through the barricade of stone and starts like a demon 
on its path of destruction. 

Into its maw it sucks a town. A town with all its 
hundreds of men and women and children, with its 
marts of business, its homes, its factories and houses 
of worship. Then, insatiate still, with a blast like the 
chaos of worlds dissolved, it rushes out to new desola- 
tion, until Nature herself, awe stricken at the sight of 
such Ineffable woe, blinds her eyes to the uncanny 
scene of death, and drops the pall of night upon the 
earth. 

Destruction Descended as a Bolt of Joye. 

A fair town In a western valley of Pennsylvania, 
happy in the arts of peace and prospering by its busy 
manufactures, suddenly swept out of existence by a 
gigantic flood and thousands of lives extinguished as 
by one fell stroke— such has been the fate of Johns- 
town. 

Never before in this country has there happened a 
disaster of such appalling proportions. It Is neceisary 
to refer to those which have occurred In the valleys of 
the great European rivers, where there Is a densely 
crowded population, to find a parallel. 
The Hori'ors Unestlmaled. 

At first the horror was not all known. It could '^nly 
be imperfectly surmised. Until a late hour on the fol- 
lowing night there was no communication with the 
hapless city. All that was positively known of its 
fate was seen from afar. It was said that out of all 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 21 

the habitations, which had sheltered about twelve 
thousand people before this awful doom had befallen, 
only two were visible above the water. All the rest, 
if this be true, had been swallowed up or else shat- 
tered into pieces and hurled downward into the flood- 
vexed valley below. 

What has become of those twelve thausand inhab- 
itants? Who can tell until after the waters have 
wholly susided ? 

Of course it is possible that many of them escaped. 
Much hope is to be built upon the natural exaggeration 
of first reports from the sorely distressed surrounding 
region and the lack of actual knowledge, in the 
absence of direct communication. But what suspense 
must there be between now and the moment when 
direct communication shall be opened ! 
Heedless of Fate. 

The valley of the Conemaugh in which Johnstown 
stood lies between the steep walls of lofty hills. The 
gathering of the rain into torrents in that region is 
quick and precipitate. The river on one side roared 
out its warning, but the people would not take heed 
of the danger impending over them on the other side 
— the great South Fork dam, two and a half miles up 
the valley and looming one hundred feet in height 
from base to top. Behind it were piled the waters, a 
great, ponderous mass, like the treasured wrath of 
fate. Their surface was about three hundred feet 
above the deserted town. 

If Noah's neighbors thought it would be only a little 



22 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

shower the people of Johnstown were yet more fool- 
ish. The railroad officials had repeatedly told them 
that the dam threatened destruction. They still per- 
versely lulled themselves into a false security. The 
blow came, when it did, like a flash. It was as if the 
heavens had fallen in liquid fury upon the earth. It 
was as if ocean itself had been precipitated into an 
abyss. The slow but inexorable march of the might- 
iest glacier of the Alps, though comparable, was not 
equal to this in force. The whole of a Pyramid, shot 
from a colossal catapult, would not have been the petty 
charge of a pea shooter to it. Imagine Niagara, or a 
greater even than Niagara, falling upon an ordinary 
collection of brick and wooden houses. 
An Inconceivable Force. 

The South Fork Reservoir was the largest in the 
United States, and it contained millions of tons of 
water. When its fetters were loosened, crumbling 
before it like sand, a building or even a rock that stood 
in its path presented as much resistance as a card 
house. The dread execution was little more than the 
work of an instant. 

The flood passed over the town as it would over a 
pile of shingles, covering over or carrying with it 
everything that stood in its way. It bounded down 
the valley, wreaking destruction and death on each 
hand and in its fore. Torrents that poured down 
out of the wilds of the mountains swelled its vol- 
ume. 

All along from the point of its release it bore debris 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 23 

and corpses as its hideous trophies. In a very brief 
time it displayed some of both, as if in hellish glee, to 
the horrified eyes of Pittsburg, seventy-eight miles 
west of the town of Johnstown that had been, having 
danced them along on its exultant billows or rolled 
them over and over in the depths of its dark current 
all the way through the Conemaugh, the Kiskiminitas 
and the Allegheny river. 

It was like a fearful monster, gnashing its dripping 
jaws in the scared face of the multitude, in the flesh of 
its victims. 

One eye-witness of the effects of the deluge declares 
that he saw five hundred dead bodies. Hundreds were 
counted by others. It will take many a day to make 
up the death roll. It will take many a day to make up 
the reckoning of the material loss. 

If any pen could describe the scenes of terror, an- 
guish and destruction which have taken place in Cone- 
maugh Valley it could write an epic greater than the 
*' Iliad." The accounts that come tell of hairbreadth 
escapes, heartrending tragedies and deeds of heroism 
almost without number. 

A Climax of Horror. 

As if to add a lurid touch of horror to the picture 
that might surpass all the rest a conflagration came to 
mock those who were in fear of drowning with a death 
yet more terrible. Where the ruins of Johnstown, 
composed mainly of timber, had been piled up forty 
feet high against a railroad bridge below the town a 
fire was started and raged with eager fury. It is said 



24 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR, 

that scores of persons were burned alive, their pier- 
cing cries appealing for aid to hundreds of spectators 
who stood on the banks of the river, but could do 
nothing. 

Western Pennsylvania is in mourning. Business 
in the cities is virtually suspended and all minds are 
bent upon this great horror, all hearts convulsed with 
the common sorrow. 

Heartrending Scenes and Heroic Struggles for ILife. 

Another eye-witness describes the calamity as fol- 
lows: A flood of death swept down the Alleghany 
Mountains yesterday afternoon and last night. Almost 
the entire city of Johnstown is swimming about in the 
rushing, angry tide. Dead bodies are floating about 
in every direction, and almost every piece of movable 
timber is carrying from the doomed city a corpse of 
humanity, drifting with the raging waters. The dis- 
aster overtook Johnstown about six o'clock last 
evening. 

As the train bearing the writer sped eastward, the 
reports at each stop grew more appalling. At Derry 
a group of railway officials were gathered who had 
come from Bolivar, the end of the passable pordon of 
the road westward. They had seen but a small por- 
tion of the awful flood, but enough to allow them to 
imasfine the rest. Down throuorh the Packsaddle came 
the rushing waters. The wooded heights of the Alle- 
ghanies looked down in wonder at the scene of the 
most terrible destruction that ever struck the romantic 
valley of the Conemaugh. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 25 

The water was rising when the men left at six o'clock 
at the rate of five feet an hour. Clinging to improvised 
rafts, constructed in the death battle from floating 
boards and timbers, were agonized men, women and 
children, their heartrending shrieks for help striking 
horror to the breasts of the onlookers. Their cries 
were of no avail. Carried along at railway speed on 
the breast of this rushing torrent, no human ingenuity 
could devise a means of rescue. 

With pallid face and hair clinging wet and damp to 
her cheek, a mother was seen grasping a floating tim- 
ber, while on her other arm she held her babe, already 
drowned. With a death-grip on a plank a strong man 
just giving up hope cast an imploring look to those on 
the bank, and an instant later he^had sunk into the 
waves. Prayers to God and cries to those in safety 
rang above the roaring waves. 

The special train pulled into Bolivar at half-past 
eleven last night, and the trainmen were there notified 
that further progress was impossible. The greatest 
excitement prevailed at this place, and parties of citi- 
zens are out all the time endeavoring to save the poor 
unfortunates that are being hurled to eternity on the 
rushing torrent. 

Attempts at Kescne. 

The tidal wave struck Bolivar just after dark, and 
in five minutes the Conemaugh rose from six to forty 
feet and the waters spread out over the whole country. 
Soon houses began floating down, and clinging to the 
debris were men, women and children shrieking for 



26 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

aid. A large number of citizens at once gathered on 
the county bridge, and they were reinforced by a num- 
ber from Garfield, a town on the opposite side of the 
river. 

They brought a number of ropes and these were 
thrown over into the boiling waters as persons drifted 
by in efforts to save some poor beings. For half an 
hour all efforts were fruitless, until at last, when the 
rescuers were about giving up all hope, a little boy, 
astride a shingle roof, managed to catch hold of one 
of the ropes. He caught it under his left arm and was 
thrown violently against an abutment, but managed to 
keep hold, and was successfully pulled on to the bridge 
amid the cheers of the onlookers. His name was 
Hessler and his rescuer was a trainman named Carney. 
The lad was at once taken to the town of Garfield and 
was cared for. The boy was aged about sixteen. His 
story of the frightful calamity is as follows : 

The Alarm. 

"With my father I was spending the day at my 
grandfather's house in Cambria City. In the house at 
the time were Theodore, Edward and John Kintz, and 
John Kintz, Jr. ; Miss Marjr Kintz, Mrs. Mary Kintz, 
wife of John Kintz, Jr. ; Miss Treacy Kintz, Mrs. Rica 
Smith, John Hirsch and four children, my father and 
myself. Shortly after five o'clock there was a noise of 
roaring waters and screams of people. We looked 
out the door and saw persons running. My father told 
us to never mind, as the waters would not rise further. 

*' But soon we saw houses being swept away, and 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 27 

then we ran up to the floor above. The house was 
three stones, and we were at last forced to the top 
one. In my fright I jumped on the bed. It was an 
old fashioned one, with heavy posts. The water kept 
rising and my bed was soon afloat. Gradually it was 
lifted up. The air in the room grew close and the 
house was moving. Still the bed kept rising and 
pressed the ceiling. At last the posts pushed against 
the plaster. It yielded and a section of the roof gave 
way. Then suddenly I found myself on the roof, and 
was being carried down stream. 

Saved. 

"After a little this roof began to part, and I was 
afraid I was going to be drowned, but just then an- 
other house with a shingle roof floated by, and I 
managed to crawl on it, and floated down until nearly 
dead with cold, when I was saved. After I was freed 
from the house I did not see my father. My grand- 
father was on a tree, but he must have been drowned, 
as the waters were rising fast. John Kintz, Jr., was 
also on a tree. Miss Mary Kintz and Mrs. Mary 
Kintz I saw drown. Miss Smith was also drowned. 
John Hirsch was in a tree, but the four children were 
drowned. The scenes were terrible. Live bodies 
and corpses were floating down with rne and away 
from me. I would see persons, hear them shriek, and 
then they would disappear. All along the line were 
people who were trying to save us, but they could do 
nothing, and only a few were caught." 

This boy's story is but one incident, and shows 



28 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

what happened to one family. No one knows what 

has happened to the hundreds who were in the path 

of the rushing water. It is impossible to get anything 

in the way of news save meagre details. 

An eye-witness at Bolivar Block Station tells a story 

of unparalleled heroism that occurred at the lower 

bridge which crosses the Conemaugh at this point. 

A. Young, with two women was seen coming down the 

river on a part of the floor. At the upper bridge a 

rope was thrown down to them. This they all failed 

to catch. Between the two bridges he was noticed to 

point towards the elder woman, who, it is supposed, 

was his mother. He was then seen to instruct the 

women how to catch the rope that was lowered from 

the other bridge. Down came the raft with a rush. 

The brave man stood with his arms around the two 

women. 

Unavailing Courage. 

As they swept under the bridge he seized the rope. 
He was jerked violently away from the two women, 
who failed to get a hold on the rope. Seeing that 
they would not be rescued, he dropped the rope and 
fell back on the raft, which floated on down the river. 
The current washed their frail craft in toward the 
bank. The young man was enabled to seize hold of 
a branch of a tree. He aided the two women to get 
up into the tree. 

He held on with his hands and rested his feet on a 
pile of driftwood. A piece of floating debris struck 
the drift, sweeping it away. The man hung with his 



THE JOHNSTOA N HORROR. 29 

body immersed in the water. A pile of drift soon 
collected and he was enabled to get another insecure 
footing. Up the river there was a sudden crash, and 
a section of the bridge was swept away and floated 
down the stream, striking the tree and washing it 
away. All three were thrown into the water and were 
drowned before the eyes of the horrified spectators 
just opposite the town of Bolivar. 

Early in the evening a woman with her two children 
was seen to pass under the bridge at Bolivar clinging 
to the roof of a coal house. A rope was lowered to 
her, but she shook her head and refused to desert the 
children. It was rumored that all three were saved 
at Cokeville, a few miles below Bolivar. A later re- 
port from Lockport says that the residents succeeded 
in rescuing five people from the flood, two women and 
three men. One man succeeded in getting out of the 
water unaided. They were taken care of by the peo- 
ple of the town. 

A CMld's Faith. 

A little girl passed under the bridge just before 
dark. She was kneeling on a part of a floor and had 
her hands clasped as if in prayer. Every effort was 
made to save her, but they all proved futile. A rail- 
roader who was standing by remarked that the piteous 
appearance of the little waif brought tears to his 
eyes. All night long the crowd stood about the ruins 
of the bridge which had been swept away at Bolivar. 
The water rushed past with a roar, carrying with it 
-parts of houses, furniture and trees. The flood had 



30 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

evidently spent its force up the valley. No more 
living persons were being carried past. Watchers 
with lanterns remained along the banks until daybreak, 
when the first view of the awful devastation of the 
flood was witnessed. 

Along the bank lay remnants of what had once been 
dwelling houses and stores; here and there was an 
uprooted tree. Piles of drift lay about, in some of 
which bodies of the victims of the flood will be found. 
Rescuing parties are being formed in all towns along 
the railroad. Houses have been thrown open to refu- 
gees, and every possible means is being used to pro- 
tect the homeless. 

Wrecking Trains to the Rescue. 

The wrecking trains of the Pennsylvania Railroad 
are slowly making their way east to the unfortunate 
city. No effort was being made to repair the wrecks, 
and the crews of the trains were organized into rescu- 
ing parties, and an effort will be made to send out a 
mail train this morning. The chances are that they 
will go no further east than Florence. There is abso- 
lutely no news from Johnstown. The little city is 
entirely cut off from communication with the outside 
world. The damage done is inestimable. No one can 
tell its extent. 

The little telegraph stations along the road are iUled 
with anxious groups of men who have friends and 
relatives in Johnstown. The smallest item of news is 
eagerly seized upon and circulated. If favorable they 
have a moment of relief, if not their faces become more 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 31 

gloomy. Harry Fisher, a young telegraph operator 
who was at Bolivar when the first rush began, says : — 
"We knew nothing of th« disaster until we noticed 
the river slowly rising and then more rapidly. News 
then reached us from Johnstown that the dam at South 
Fork had burst. Within three hours the water in the 
river rose at least twenty feet. Shortly before six 
o'clock ruins of houses, beds, household utensils, bar- 
rels and kegs came floating past the bridges. At eight 
o'clock the water was within six feet of the roadbed of 
the bridge. The wreckage floated past without stop- 
ping for at least two hours. Then it began to lessen, 
and night coming suddenly upon us we could see no 
more. The wreckage was floating by for a long time 
before the first living persons passed. Fifteen people 
that I saw were carried down by the river. One of 
these, a boy, was saved, and three of them were 
drowned just directly below the town. It was an awful 
sight and one that I will not soon forget." 

Hundreds of animals lost thei^- lives. The bodies of 
horses, dogs and chickens floated past. The little boy 
who was rescued at Bolivar had two dogs as compan- 
ions during his fearful ride. The dogs were drowned 
just before reaching the^ bridge. One old mule swam 
past. Its shoulders were torn, but it was alive when 
swept past the town. 

Saved from a Watery Grave to Perish by Flames. 

After a long, weary ride of eight or nine miles over 
the worst of country roads New Florence, fourteen 
miles from Johnstown, was reached. The road bed 



32 THE JOHNSTOWN' HORROR. 

between this place and Bolivar was washed out in many 
places. The trackmen and the wreck crews were all 
night in the most dangerous portions of the road. 

The last man from Johnstown brought the informa- 
tion that scarcely a house remained in the city. The 
upper portion above the railroad bridge had been 
completely submerged. The water dammed up against 
the viaduct, the wreckage and debris finishing the 
work that the torrent had failed to accomplish. The 
bridge at Johnstown proved too stanch for the fury of 
the water. It is a heavy piece of masonry, and was 
used as a viaduct by the old Pennsylvania Canal. 
Some of the top stones were displaced. 

The story reached here a short time ago that a 
family consisting of father and mother and nine chil- 
dren were washed away in a creek at Lockport. The 
mother managed to reach the shore, but the husband 
and children were carried out into the Conemaugh to 
drown. The woman is crazed over the terrible event. 
A Mght of Horror. 

After night settled down upon the mountains the 
horror of the scenes was enhanced. Above the roar 
of the water could be heard the piteous appeals from 
the unfortunate as they were carried by. To add 
also to the terror of the night, a brilliant illumination 
lit up the sky. This illumination could be plainly seen 
from this place. 

A message received from Sang Hollow stated that 
this light came from a hundred burning wrecks of 
houses that were piled upon tlie Johnstown Bridge. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 33 

A supervisor from up the road brought the informa- 
tion that the wreckage at Johnstown was piled up forty 
feet above the bridge. 

The starthng news came in that more than a thou- 
sand lives had been lost. This cannot be substan- 
tiated. By actual count one hundred and ten people 
had been seen floating past Sang Hollow before dark. 
Forty-seven were counted passing New Florence and 
the number had diminished to eight at Bolivar. The 
darkness coming on stopped any further count, and it 
was only by the agonizing cries that rang out above 
the waters that it was known that a human being was 
beincr carried to death. 

o 

Au Irresistible Torrent. 

The scenes along the river were wild in the extreme. 
Although the water w^as subsiding, still as it dashed 
against the rocks that filled the narrow channel of the 
Conemaugh its spray was carried high up on the shore. 
The towns all along the line of the railroad from 
Johnstown west had received visitations. Many of 
the houses in New Florence were partially under 
water. At Bolivar the whole lower part of the town 
was submerged. 

The ride over the mountain road gave one a good 
idea of the cause of this disaster. Every creek was a 
rushing river and every rivulet a raging torrent. The 
ground was water soaked, and when the immense 
mountain district that drains into the Conemaugh 
above South Fork is taken into consideration the 
terrible volume of water that must have accumulated 
3 



34 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

can be realized. Gathering, as it did, within a few 
minutes, it came against the breast of the South Fork 
dam with irresistible force. The frightened inhabi- 
tants along the Conemaugh describe the flood as some- 
thing awful. The first rise came almost without warn- 
ing, and the torrent came roaring down the mountain 
passes in one huge wave, several feet in height. After 
the first swell the water continued to rise at a fearful rate. 
Dayllg^lit Bringrs No Relief. 

The gray morning light does not seem to show 
either hope or mitigation of the awful fears of the 
night. It has been a hard night to everybody. The 
overworked newspaper men, who have been without 
rest and food since yesterday afternoon, and the 
operators who have handled the messages are already 
preparing for the work of the day. There has been a 
long wrangle over the possession of a special train 
for the press between rival newspaper men, and it has 
delayed the work of others who are anxious to get 
further east. 

Even here, so far from the washed-out towns, seven 
bodies have been, found. Two were in a tree, a man 
and a woman, where the flood had carried them. The 
country people are coming into the town in large 
numbers telling stories of disaster along the river 
banks in sequestered places. 

Floating Houses. 

John McCarthey, a carpenter, who lives in Johns- 
town, reached here about four o'clock. He left Johns- 
town at half-past four yesterday afternoon and says the 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 35 

scene then was indescribable. The people had been 
warned early in the morning to move to the highlands, 
but they did not heed the warning, although it was re- 
peated a number of times up to one o'clock, when the 
water poured into Cinder street several feet deep. 
Then the houses began rocking to and fro, and finally 
the force of the current carried buildings across streets 
and vacant lots and dashed them against each other, 
breaking them Into fragments. These buildings were 
full of the people who had laughed at the cry of 
danger. McCarthey says that in some cases he 
counted as many as fifteen persons clinging to build- 
ings. McCarthey' s wife was with him. She had three 
sisters, who lived near her. They saw the house in 
which these girls lived carried away, and then they 
could endure the situation no longer and hurried away. 
The husband feared his wife would go crazy. They 
went inland along country roads until they reached 
here. 

It is said to be next to impossible to get to Johns- 
town proper to-day in any manner except by rowboat. 
The roads are cut up so that even the countrymen re- 
fuse to travel over them in their roughest vehicles. 
The only hope is to get within about three miles by a 
special train or by hand car. 

The Dead Cast Up. 

Nine dead bodies have been picked up within the 
limits of this borough since daylight. None of them 
has yet been recognized. Five are women. One 
woman, probably twenty-five years old, had clasped in 



S6 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

her arms a babe about six months old. The body of 
a young man was discovered in the branches of a huge 
tree which had been carried down the stream. All the 
orchard crops and shrubbery along the banks of the 
river have been destroyed. 

The body of another woman has just been dis- 
covered In the river here. Her foot was seen above 
the surface of the water and a rope was fastened 

about it. 

A Roof as a Raft. 

John Weber and his wife, an old couple, Michael 
Metzgar and John Forney were rescued near here 
early this morning. They had been carried from their 
home in Cambria City on the roof of the house. 
There were seven others on the roof when It was 
carried off, all of whom were drowned. They were 
unknown to Weber, having drifted on to the roof from 
floating debris. Weber and wife were thoroughly 
drenched and were almost helpless from exposure. 
They were unable to walk when taken off the roof at 
this place. They are now at the hotel here. 

Hundreds of people from Johnstown and up river 
towns are hurrying here in search of friends and 
relatives who were swept away in last night's flood. 
The most intense excitement prevails. The street 
corners are crowded with pale and anxious people 
who tell of the calamity with bated breath. Squire 
Bennett has charge of the dead bodies, and he Is hav- 
ing them properly cared for. They are being pre- 
pared for burial, but will be held here for identification. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 37 

Four boys have just come from the river bank 
above here. They say that on the opposite side a 
number of bodies can be seen lying in the mud. 
They found the body of a woman on this side badly 
bruised. 

R. B. Rodgers, Justice of the Peace at Nineveh, has 
wired the Coroner at Greensburg that one hundred 
dead bodies have been found at that place, and he 
asks what is to be done with them. From this one 
can estimate that the loss of life will reach over one 
thousand. 

A report has just been received that twenty persons 
are on an island near Nineveh and that men and 
women are on a partly submerged tree. 

A report has just reached here that at least one 
hundred people were consumed in the flames at Johns- 
town last night, but it cannot be verified here. The 
air is filled with thrilling and most incredible stories, 
but none of them have as yet been confirmed. It is 
certain, however, that even the worst cannot be imag- 
ined. 

"Waruingrs Kemenibered Too Liate. 

It is very evident that more lives have been lost be- 
cause of foolish incredulity than from ignorance of the 
danger. For more than a year there have been fears 
of an accident of just such a character. The founda- 
tions of the dam were considered to be shaky early 
last spring and many increasing leakages were reported 
from time to time. 

According to people who live in Johnstown and other 



_38 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

towns on the line of the river, ample time was given 
to the Johnstown folks by the railroad officials and by 
other gentlemen of standing and reputation. In 
dozens, yes, hundreds of cases, this warning was ut- 
terly disregarded, and those who heeded it early in the 
day were looked upon as cowards, and many jeers 
were uttered by lips that now are cold among the rank 
grass beside the river. 

There has grown up a bitter feeling among the sur- 
viving sufferers against those who owned the lake and 
dam. and damage suits will be plentiful by and by. 

The dam in Stony Creek, above Johnstown, broke 
about noon yesterday and thousands of feet of lumber 
passed down the stream. It is impossible to tell what 
the loss of life will be, but at nine o'clock the Coroner 
of Westmoreland county sent a message out saying 
that I GO bodies had been recovered at Nineveh, half- 
way from here to Johnstown. Sober minded people do 
not hesitate to say that 1,200 is moderate. 
Fire's Awful Work. 

"How can anybody tell how many are dead?" said 
a railroad engineer this morning. 'T have been at 
Long Hollow with my train since eleven o'clock yes- 
terday, and I have seen fully five hundred persons lost 
in the flood." 

J. W. Esch, a brave railroad employee, saved six- 
teen lives at Nineveh. 

The most awful culmination of the awful night was 
the roasting of a hundred or more persons in mid- 
flood. The ruins of houses, old buildings and other 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 39 

Structures swept against the new railroad bridge at 
Johnstown, and from an overturned stove or some such 
cause the upper part of the wreckage caught fire. 

There were crowds of men, women and children on 
the wreck, and their screams were soon heard. They 
were literally roasted on the flood. Soon after the fire 
burned itself out other persons were thrown against 
the mass. There were some fifty people in sight when 
the ruins suddenly broke up and were swept under 
the bridge into the darkness. 

The latest news from Johnstown is that but two 
houses could be seen in the town. It is also said that 
only three houses remain in Cambria City. 

The first authentic news was from W. N. Hays, of 
the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, who reached 
New Florence at nine o'clock. He says the valley 
towns are annihilated. 

Destruction at Blairsvllle. 

The flood in the Conemaugh River at this point is 
the heaviest ever known here. At this hour the rail- 
road bridge between here and Blairsville intersection 
has been swept away, and also the new bridge at Coke- 
ton, half a mile below. It is now feared that the iron 
bridge at the lower end of this town will go. A living 
woman and dead man, supposed to be her husband, 
were seen going under the railroad bridge. They 
were seen to come from under the bridge safely, but 
shortly disappeared and were seen no more. 

A great many families lose their household goods. 
The river is running full of timber, houses, goods, etc. 



40 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

The loss will be heavy. The excitement here Is very- 
great. The river Is still rising. There are some famil- 
ies below the town in the second story of their houses 
who cannot get out. It Is feared that If the water 
goes much higher the loss of life will be very great. 
The railroad company had fourteen cars of coal on their 
bridge when it went down, and all were swept down 
the river. 

The town bridge has just succumbed to the seeth- 
ing floods, whose roar can be heard a long distance. 
The water Is still rising and it is thought that the West 
Pennsylvania Railroad will be without a single bridge. 
It Is reported that a man went down with the Blairs- 
vllle bridge while he was adjusting a headlight. 
Havoc about Altoona. 

The highest and most destructive flood that has 
visited this place for fifty years occurred yesterday. 
It has been raining continuously for the past twenty- 
four hours. The Juniata river is ten feet above low 
water mark and is still rising. The lower streets of 
Gaysport bordering on the river bank are submerged, 
and the water is two feet deep on the first floors of the 
houses there. The water rose so rapidly that the 
people had to be removed from the houses in boats 
and wagons. Three railroad trestles and a number of 
bridges over the streams have been carried away, and 
railroad travel betw^een this place and the surrounding 
towns has been interrupted. 

Property of all kinds was carried off. The truck 
gardens and grain fields along the river were utterly 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 41 

destroyed, and the fences carried away. The iron 
furnaces and rolling mills at this place and Duncan- 
ville were compelled to shut down on account of the 
high water. Keene & Babcock lost 300,000 brick in 
the kiln ready to burn, G. W. Rhodes 350,000, and 
Joseph Hart 15,000. It is estimated that the flood has 
done over ^50,000 damage in this vicinity. The fences 
of the Blair County Agricultural Society were de- 
stroyed. 

Alarm at York. 

Last night was one of great alarm here. It rained 
steadily all day, some of the showers being severe. 
The great flood of 1884 is forcibly recalled. Many 
families are moving out. At half-past one A. M. a 
general alarm was sounded on the bells of the cit)^ 

The flood in the Susquehanna River here reached its 
greatest height about six o'clock this morning, when 
all bridges save one were under water. Business 
places and residences in the low section were flooded 
to a great extent, and the damage in this city alone 
amounts to ;^25,ooo so far. The injury to the Spring 
Grove paper mills near this city is heavy. By noon 
the water had fallen sufficiently to restore travel over 
nearly all the bridges. 

A number of bridges in the county have been swept 
away, and the loss in the county exclusive of the city 
is estimated at ^100,000. 

In attempting to catch some driftwood James Mcll- 
vaine lost his balance and fell into the raging current 
and was drowned. 



42 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Seven bodies have been taken from the water and 
debris on the river banks at New Florence. One body 
has also been taken from the river at this point, that 
of a young girl. None of them have been identi- 
fied. 

The whole face of the country between here and 
New Florence is under water, and houses, bridges and 
buildings fill the fields and even perch upon the hill- 
side all the way to Johnstown. Great flocks of crows 
are already filling the valley, while buzzards are almost 
as frequently seen. The banks of the river are lined 
with people who are looking as well for booty as for 
bodies. Much valuable property was carried away 
in the houses as well as from houses not washed 
away. 

The river has fallen again into its channel, and noth- 
ing in the stream itself except its red, angry color shows 
the wild horror of last night. It has fallen fully twenty 
feet since midnight, and by to-night it will have attain- 
ed its normal depth. 

Paiuful Scenes. 

At all points from Greensburg to Long Hollow, the 
limit of the present trouble, scores of people throng 
the stations begging and beseeching railroad men on 
the repair trains to take them aboard, as they are 
almost frenzied with anxiety and apprehension in re- 
gard to their friends who live at or near Johnstown. 
Strong men are as tearful as the women who join in the 
request. 

Pitiable sights and scenes multiply more and more 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 43 

rapidly. The Conemaugh is one great valley of mourn- 
ing. Those who have not lost friends have lost their 
house or their substance, and apparently the grief for 
the one is as poignant as for the other. 
They Were Warned. 

The great volume of water struck Johnstown 
about half-past five in the afternoon. It did not 
find the people unprepared, as they had had no- 
tice from South Fork that the dam was threatening to 
go. Many, however, disregarded the notice and 
remained in their houses in the lower part of 
the city and were caught before they could get 
out. 

Superintendent Pitcairn, of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road, who has spent the entire day in assisting not 
only those who were afflicted by the flood, but also in 
an attempt to reopen his road, went home this morn- 
ing. Before he left he issued an order to all Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad employees to keep a sharp lookout for 
bodies, both in the river and in the bushes, and to 
return them to their friends. 

Assistant Superintendent Trump is still on the 
ground near Lone Hollow directing the movements of 
gravel and construction trains, which are arriving as 
fast as they can be fitted up and started out. The 
roadbeds of both the Pennsylvania and the West 
Pennsylvania railroads are badly damaged, and it 
will cost the latter, especially from the Bolivar Junc- 
tion to Saltsburg, many thousands of dollars to repair 
injuries to embankments alone. 



44 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

In Pittsburg there was but one topic of conversa- 
tion, and that was the Johnstown deluge. Crowds of 
eager watchers all day long besieged the newspaper 
bulletin boards and rendered streets impassable in 
their vicinity. Many of them had friends or relatives 
in the stricken district, and " Names ! " " Names ! " 
was their cry. But there were no names. The 
storm which had perhaps swept away their loved ones 
had also carried away all means of communication 
and their vigil was unrewarded. It is not yet known 
whether the telegraph operator at Johnstown is dead 
or alive. The nearest point to that city which can be 
reached to-night is New Florence, and the one wire 
there is used almost constantly by orders for coffins, 
embalming fluid and preparing special cars to carry 
the recovered dead to their homes. 

Along the banks of the now turbulent Allegheny 
were placed watchers for dead bodies, and all wreck- 
age was carefully scanned for the dead. The result of 
this vigilance was the recovery of one body, that of a 
woman floating down on a pile of debris. Seven 
other bodies were seen, but could not be reached 
owing to the swift moving wreckage by which they 
were surrounded. 

A Heartrending Sijjht. 

A railroad conductor who arrived in the city this 
morning said: — "There is no telling how many lives 
are lost. We got as far as Bolivar, and I tell you it is 
a terrible sight. The body of a boy was picked up by 
some of us there, and there were eleven bodies recov- 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR: 45 

ered altogether. I do not think that anyone got into 
Johnstown, and it is my opinion that they will not get 
in very soon. No one who is not on the grounds has 
any idea of the damage done. It will be at least a 
week before the extent of this flood is known, and then 
I think many bodies will never be recovered." 

Assistant Superintendent Wilson, of the West 
Pennsylvania Railroad, received the following despatch 
from Nineveh to-day : — 

"There appears to be a large number of people 
lodged in the trees and rubbish along the line. Many 
are alive. Rescuing parties should be advised at 
every station." 

Another telegram from Nineveh said that up to noon 
175 bodies had been taken from the river at that point. 

The stage of water in the Allegheny this afternoon 
became so alarming that residents living In the low- 
lying districts began to remove their household effects 
to a higher grade. The tracks of the Pittsburgh and 
Western Railroad are under water in several places, 
and great inconvenience is felt in moving trains. 
Criminal Negligence. 

It was stated at the office of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road early this morning that the deaths would run up 
into the thousands rather than hundreds, as was at first 
supposed. Despatches received state that the stream 
of human beings that was swept before the floods was 
pitiful to behold. Men, women and children were 
carried along frantically shrieking for help. Rescue 
was impossible. 



46 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Husbands were swept past their wives, and children 
were borne along at a terrible speed to certain death 
before the eyes of their terrorized and frantic parents. 
It was said at the depot that it was impossible to 
estimate the ilumber whose lives were lost in the flood. 
It will simply be a matter of conjecture for several 
days as to who was lost and who escaped. 

The people of Johnstown were warned of the pos- 
sibility of the bursting of the dam during the morn- 
ing, but very few if any of the inhabitants took the 
warning seriously. Shortly after noon it gave way 
about five miles above Johnstown, and sweeping 
everything before it burst upon the town with terrible 
force. 

Everything was carried before it, and not an in- 
stant's time was given to seek safety. Houses were 
demolished, swept from their foundations and carried 
in the flood to a culvert near the town. Here a mass 
of all manner of debris soon lodged, and by evening it 
had dammed the water back into the city over the tops 
of many of the still remaining chimneys. 
The Dam Always a Menace. 

Assistant Superintendent Trump, of the Pennsyl- 
vania, is at Conemaugh, but the officials at the depot 
had not been able to receive a line from him until as 
late as half-past two o'clock this morning. It was said 
also that it will be impossible to get a train through 
either one way or the other for at least two or three 
days. This applies also to the mails, as there is abso- 
lutely no way of getting mails through. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 47 

"We were afraid of that lake," said a gentleman 
who had lived in Johnstown for years, "we were 
afraid of that lake seven years ago. No one could see 
the immense height to which that artificial dam had 
been built without fearing the tremendous power of 
the water behind it. 1 doubt if there was a man or 
woman in Johnstown who at some time or other had 
not feared and spoken of the terrible disaster that has 
now come. 

"People wondered and asked why the dam was not 
strengthened, as it certainly had become weak, but 
nothing was done, and by and by they talked less and 
less about it as nothing happened, though now and 
then some would shake their heads as though con- 
scious that the fearful day would come some time 
when their worst fears would be transcended by the 
horror of the actual occurrence. 

Converted Into a Lake. 

"Johnstown is in a hollow between two rivers, and 
that lake must have swept over the city at a depth of 
forty feet. It cannot be, it is impossible that such an 
awful thing could happen to a city of ten thousand 
inhabitants, and if it has, thousands have lost their 
lives, and men are to blame for it, for warnings have 
been uttered a thousand times and have received no 
attention." 

The body of a Welsh woman, sixty years of age, 
was taken from the river near the suspension bridge, 
ac ten o'clock this morning. Four other bodies were 
seen, but owing to the mass of wreckage which is 



48 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

coming down they could not be recovered, and passed 
down the Ohio River. 

A citizens' meeting has been called to devise means 
to aid the sufferers. The Pennsylvania Railroad offic- 
ials have already placed cars on Liberty street for the 
purpose of receiving provisions and clothing, and up 
to this hour many prominent merchants have made 
heavy donations. 

Anxiety of the People. 

The difficulty of obtaining definite information 
added tremendously to the excitement and apprehen- 
sion of the people in Pittsburgh who had relatives and 
friends at the scene of the disaster. 

Members of the South Fork Club, and among them 
some of the most eminent men in the Pittsburgh 
financial and mercantile world, were in or near Johns- 
town, and several of them were accompanied by their 
wives and families. There happened to be also quite 
a number of residents of Johnstown in Pittsburgh, 
and when the news of the horror was confirmed and 
the railroads bulletined the fact that no trains would 
go east last night the scene at Union Depot was 
profoundly pathetic and exciting. But two trains were 
sent out by the Pennsylvania road from the Union 
station at Pittsburgh. 

A despatch states that the Cambria Iron Company's 
plant on the north side of the Conemaugh River at 
Johnstown is a complete wreck. Until this despatch 
was received it was not thought that this portion of 
the plant had been seriously injured. It was known 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



49 



that the portion of the plant located on :the south 
bank of the river was washed away, and this was 
thought to be the extent of the damage to the property 
of that immense corporation. The plant is said to be 
valued at $5,000,000. 




CHAPTER II. 
Deathi and Desolation.. 

The terrible situation on the second day after the 
great disaster only intensifies the horror. As informa- 
tion becomes more full and accurate, it does not abate 
one tittle of the awful havoc. Rather it adds to it, and 
gives a thousand-fold terror to the dreadful calamity. 

Not only do the scenes which are described appear 
all the more dreadful, as is natural, the nearer they are 
brought to the imagination, but it seems only too 
probable that the final reckoning in loss of life and 
material wealth will prove far more stupendous than 
has even yet been supposed. 

The very greatness of the destruction prevents the 
possibility of an accurate estimate. Beneath the 
ghastly ruins of the once happy towns and villages 
along the pathway of the deluge, who shall say how 
many victims lie buried ? Amid the rocks and woods 
that border the broad track of the waters, who shall 
say how many lie bruised and mangled and unrecog- 
nizable, wedged between boulders or massed amid 
debris and rubbish, or hidden beneath the heaped-up 
deposits of earth, and whether all of them shall ever 
be found and given the last touching rites ? 

Already the air of the little valley, which four days 
ago was smiling with all the health of nature and the 

(50) 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 51 

contentment of industrious man, is waxing pestiferous 
with the awful odor of decaying human bodies. Buz- 
zards, invited by their disgusting instinct, gather for a 
promised feast, and sit and glower on neighboring 
perches or else circle round and round in the blue em- 
pyrean over the location of unfriended corpses, known 
only to their keen sense of smell or vision. 

But another kind of buzzard, more disgusting, more 
hideous, more vile, has hastened to this scene of woe 
and anguish and desolation to exult over it to his 
profit. Thugs and thieves in unclean hordes have 
mysteriously turned up at Johnstown and its vicinity, 
as hyenas in the desert seem to spring bodily out of 
the deadily sand whenever the corpse of a gallant 
warrior, abandoned by his kind, lies putrefying in the 
night. 

There is a cry from the afflicted community for the 
policing of the devastated region, and there is no doubt 
it is greatly needed. Happily, Nemesis does not sleep 
this time in the face of such provocation as is given 
her by these atrociously inhuman human beings. It is 
a satisfaction to record that something more than a 
half dozen of them have been dealt with as promptly 
and as mercilessly as they deserve. For such as they 
there should be no code of pity. 

There is an inexhaustible store of pathos and hero- 
ism in the tale of this disaster. Of course, in all of its 
awful details it never can be fitly written. One reason 
is that too many of the witnesses of its more fearful 
phases "sleep the sleep that knows not waking." 



62 - THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

But there is a greater reason, and that is that there is 
a point in the intenser actuality of things at which all 
human language fails to do justice to it. Yet — as 
simply told as possible — there are many incidents of 
this great tragedy which nothing has ever surpassed 
or ever can surpass in impressiveness. It is a con- 
solation, too, that human nature at such times does 
betray here and there a gleam of that side of it which 
gives forth a reflection of the ideal manhood or woman- 
hood. Bits of heroism and of tender devotedness 
scattered throughout this dark, dismal picture of de- 
struction and despair light it up with wonderful beauty, 
and while they bring tears to the eyes of the sternest 
reader, will serve as a grateful relief from the per- 
vading hue of horror and blackness. 

There is the very gravest need of vigorous relief 
measures in favor of the survivors of the flood, A 
spontaneous movement in that direction has been 
begun, but as yet lacks the efficiency only to be de- 
rived from a general and ^organized co-operation. 
Complete Annihilation. 

When Superintendent Pitcairn telegraphed from 
Johnstown to Pittsburgh Friday night that the town was 
annihilated he came very close to the facts of the 
case, although he had not seen the ill-fated city. To 
say that Johnstown is a wreck is but stating the facts 
of the case. Nothing like it was ever seen in this 
country. Where long rows of dwelling houses and 
business blocks stood forty-eight hours ago, ruin an(i 
desolation now reign supreme. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 53 

The losses, however, are as nothing com- 
pared to the frightful sacrifices of precious hu- 
man lives. During Sunday Johnstown has been 
drenched with the tears of stricken mortals, and 
the air is filled with sobs that come from 
breaking hearts. There are scenes enacted here 
every hour and every minute that affect all behold- 
ers profoundly. When brave men die in battle, for 
country or for principle, their loss can be reconciled to 
the stern destinies of life. When homes are torn 
asunder in an instant, and the loved ones hurled from 
the arms of loving and devoted mothers, there is an 
element of sadness connected with the tragedy that 
touches every heart. 

The loss of life is simply dreadful. Tlie most co^iser- 
vative people declare that the number will reach 5000, 
while others confidently assert that 8000 or 10,000 have 
perished. 

How Johnstown Looks after Flood and Fire Have Done 
Their Worst. 

An eye-witness writing from Pittsburgh says : — We 
have just returned from a trip through what is left of 
Johnstown. The view from beyond is almost impossi- 
ble to describe. To look upon it is a sight that neither 
war nor catastrophe can equal. House is piled upon 
house, not as we have seen in occasional floods of the 
the Western rivers, but the remains of two and four 
storied buildings piled upon the top of one another. 

The ruins of what is known as the Club House are 
in perhaps the best condition of any in that portion 
of the town, but it is certainly damaged beyond possi- 



64 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

bility of repair. On the upper floor five bodies are 
lying unide7itified. One of them, a woman of genteel 
birth, judging by her dress, is locked in one of the 
small rooms to prevent a possibility of spoiliation by 
wreckers, who are flocking to the spot from all direc- 
tions and taking possession of everything they can get 
hold of. 

Here and there bodies can be seen sticking in the 
ruins. Some of the most prominent citizens are to be 
seen working with might and main to get at the re- 
mains of relatives whom they have located. 

There is no doubt that, wild as the estimates of the 
loss of life and damage to property have been^ it is even 
larger than there is any idea of. 

Close on to 2,000 residences lie in kindling wood at 
the lower end of the town. 

Freaks of the Flood. 

An idea of the eccentricity of the flood may be 
gathered from the fact that houses that were situated 
at Woodvale and points above Johnstown are piled at 
the lower end of the town, while some massive houses 
have been lifted and carried from the lower end as 
far as the cemetery at the extreme upper portion of 
tlie town. All through the ruins are scattered the 
most costly furniture and store goods of all kinds. 
Thieves are Busy. 

I Stood on the keyboard and strings of a piano 
while I watched a number of thieves break into the 
remnants of houses and pilfer them, while others 
again had got at a supply of fine groceries and had 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 55 

broken into a barrel of fine brandy, and were fairly- 
steeping themselves in it. I met quite a number of 
Pittsburghers in the ruins looking for friends and rela- 
tives. If the skiffs which were expected from Pitts- 
burgh were there they would be of vast assistance in 
' reaching the ruins, which are separated by the stream 
of water descending from the hills. A great fear is 
felt that there will be some difficulty in restoring the 
stream to its proper channel. Its course now lies right 
along Main street, and it is about two hundred yards 
wide. 

Something should be done to get the bodies of the 
dead decently taken care of. The ruins are reeking 
with the smell of decaying bodies. Right at the edge 
of the ruins the decaying body of a stout colored 
woman is lying like the remains of an animal, without 
any one to identify and take care of it. 
LyacMng the <^Iioul8. 

A number of Hungarians collected about a number 
of bodies at Cambria which had been washed up and 
began rifling the trunks. After they had secured all 
the contents they turned their attention to the dead. 

The ghastly spectacle presented by the distorted 
features of those who had lost their lives during the 
flood had no influence upon the ghouls, who acted 
more like wild beasts than human beings. They took 
every article from the clothing on the dead bodies, not 
leaving anything of value or anything that would serve 
to identify the remains. 

After the miscreants had removed all their plunder 



66 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

to dry ground a dispute arose over a division of the 
spoils. A pitched battle followed and for a time the 
situation was alarming. Knives and clubs were used 
freely. As a result several of the combatants were 
seriously wounded and left on the ground, their fellow 
countrymen not making any attempt to remove them 
from the iidd of strife. 

JOHNSTOWN, Pa., June 2, 1 1 A. M, 

They have just hung a man over near the railroad to 
the telegraph pole for cutting the jinger off of a dead 
woman in order to get a ring. 

VeHgeaaic^, Swiffc an<I Sure. 

The way of the transgressor in the desolated valley 
of the Conemaugh is hard indeed. Each hour reveals 
some new and horrible story of suffering and outrage, 
and every succeeding hour brings news of swift and 
merited punishment meted out to the fiends who have 
dared to desecrate the stiff and mangled corpses in the 
city of the dead, and torture the already half crazed 
victims of the cruelest of modern catastrophes. 

As the roads to the lands round about are opened 
tales of almost indescribable horror come to light, and 
deeds of the vilest nature, perpetrated in the darkness 
of the night, are brought to light. 

Followed by Aven^ng^ Farmers. 

Just as the shadows began to fall upon the earth 
last evening a party of thirteen Hungarians were 
noticed stealthily picking their way along the banks of 
the Conemaugh toward Sang Hollow. Suspicious of 
their purpose, several farmers armed themselves and 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 57 

Started in pursuit. Soon their most horrible fears 
were realized. The Hungarians were out for plun- 
der. 

Lying upon the shore they came upon the dead 
and mangled body of a woman upon whose 
person there were a number of trinkets and 
jewelry and two diamond rings. In their eagerness 
to secure the plunder, the Hungarians got into a 
squabble, during which one of the number severed 
the finger upon which were the rings, and started on 
a run with his fearful prize. The revolting nature of 
the deed so wrought upon the pursuing farmers, who 
by this time were close at hand, that they gave imme- 
diate chase. Some of the Hungarians showed fight, but 
being outnumbered were compelled to flee for their 
lives. Nine of the brutes escaped, but four were 
literally driven into the surging river and to their 
death. The inhuman monster whose atrocious act 
has been described was among the number of the in- 
voluntary suicides. Another incident of even greater 
moment has just been brought to notice. 
Anxious to be a Murderer. 

At half-past eight this morning an old railroader who 
had walked from Sang Hollow stepped up to a number 
of men who were congregated on the platform stations 
at Curranville and said : — " Gentlemen, had I a shotgun 
with me half an hour ago I would now be a murderer, 
yet with no fear of ever having to suffer for my crime. 

" Two miles below here I watched three men going 
along the banks stealing (he Jewels from the bodies of the 



58 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

dead wives and daughters of men icho have been robhed 
of all they held dear on earth." 

He had no sooner finished the last sentence than 
five burly men, with looks of terrible determination 
written on their faces, were on their way to the scene 
of plunder, one with a coil of rope over his shoulder 
and another with a revolver in his hand. In twenty 
minutes, so it is stated, they had overtaken two of the 
wretches, who were then in the act of cutting pieces 
from the ears and fingers from the hands of the bodies 
of two dead women. 

Brutes at Bay. 

With revolver levelled at the scoundrels the leader 
of the posse shouted, " Throw up your hands or I'll 
blow your heads off!" With blanched faces and 
trembling forms they obeyed the order and begged for 
mercy. They were searched, and as their pockets 
were emptied of their ghastly finds the indignation of 
the crowd intensified, and when a bloody finger of an 
infant, ericircled loith two tiny gold rings, was found 
among the plunder in the leader's pocket, a cry went up 
''Lynch them t Lynch them I ^' Without a moment's 
delay ropes were thrown around their necks and they 
were dangling to the limbs of a tree, in the branches of 
which an hour before were entangled the bodies of a dead 
father and son. 

After the expiration of a half hour the ropes were 
cut, and the bodies lowered and carried to a pile of 
rocks in the forest on the hill above. It is hinted that 
an Allegheny county official was one of the most prom- 
inent actors in this justifiable homicide. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 69 

Another case of attempted lynching was witnessed 
this evening near Kernville. The man was observed 
stealing valuable articles from the houses. He was 
seized by a mob, a rope was placed around his neck 
and he was jerked up into the air. The rope was tied 
to the tree and his would-be lynchers left him. By- 
standers cut him down before he was dead. The other 
men did not interfere and he was allowed to go. The 
man was so badly scared that he could not give his 
name if he wanted to do so. 

Two colored men were shot while robbing the dead 
bodies, by the Pittsburgh police, who are doing guard 
about the town. 

Fiends in Human Form. 

To one who saw bright, bustling Johnstown a week 
ago the sight of its present condition must cause a 
thrill of horror, no matter how callous he might be. I 
doubt if any incident of war or flood ever caused a 
more sickening sight. Wretchedness of the most 
pathetic kind met the gaze on every side. 

Unlawfulness runs riot. If ever military aid was 
needed now is the time. The town is perfectly overrun 
with thieves^ many of them from Pittsburgh. The Hun- 
garians are the worst. They seem to operate in reg- 
ular organized bands. In Cambria City this morning 
they entered a house, drove out the occupants at the 
point of revolvers and took possession. They can be 
constantly seen carrying large quantities of plunder to 
the hills. 

The number of drunken men is remarkable. Whis- 



CO THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

key seems marvelously plenty. Men are actually 
carrying it around in pails. Barrels of the stuff are 
constantly located among the drifts, and men are 
scrambling over each other and fighting like wild 
beasts in their mad search for it. 

At the cemetery, at the upper end of the town, I 
saw a gight that rivals the inferno. A number of 
ghouls had found a lot of fine groceries, among them 
a barrel of brandy, with which they were fairly stuffing 
themselves. One huge fellow was standing on the 
strings of an upright piano singing a profane song, 
every little while breaking into a wild dance. A half 
dozen others were engaged in a hand-to-hand fight 
over the possession of some treasure stolen from a 
ruined house, and the crowd around the barrel were 
yelling like wild men. 

The cry for help increases every hour. Something 
must be done to get the bodies decently taken care of. 
The ruins are reeking with the smell of decaying 
bodies. At the very edge of the ruins the body of a 
large colored woman, in an advanced state of decom- 
position, is lying like the body of an animal. 
Watclied Their FHends Die. 

The fire in the drift above the bridge is still burning 
fiercely and will continue to do so for several days. 
The skulls of six people can be seen sticking up out 
of the ruins just above the east end of the bridge. 
Nothing but the blackened skulls can be seen. They 
are all together. 

The sad scenes will never all be written. One lady 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 61 

told me this morning of seeing her mother crushed to 
pieces just before her eyes and the mangled body- 
carried off down the stream. William Yarner lost six 
children and saved a baby about eighteen months old. 
His wife died just three weeks ago. An aged German, 
his wife and five daughters floated down on their 
house to a point below Nineveh, where the house was 
wrecked. The five daughters were drowned, but the 
old man and his wife stuck in a tree and hung there 
for twenty-four hours before they could be taken off. 
Died Kissing^ Her Babe. 

One of the most pitiful sights of this terrible dis- 
aster came to my notice this afternoon, when the body 
of a young lady was taken out of the Conemaugh 
River. The woman was apparently quite young, 
though her features were terribly disfigured. Nearly 
all the clothing except the shoes was torn off the body. 
The corpse was that of a mother, for although cold in 
death the woman clasped a young male babe appar- 
ently not more than a year old tightly in her arms. 
The little one was huddled close up to its mother's 
face, who when she realized their terrible fate, had ev- 
idently raised the babe to her lips to imprint upon its 
little lips the last motherly kiss it was to receive in this 
world. The sight was a pathetic one and turned many 
a stout heart to tears. 

Among the miraculous escapes to be recorded in 
connection with the great disaster is that of George 
J. Leas and his family. He resided on Iron street. 
When the rush of water came there were eight 



62 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

people on the roof. The little house swung around 
off its moorings and floated about for nearly half an 
hour before it came up against the bank of drift 
above the stone bridge. A three-year-old girl with 
sunny golden hair and dimpled cheeks prayed all the 
while that God would save them, and it seemed that 
God really answered the prayer of this innocent little 
girl and directed the house against the drift, enabling 
every one of the eight to get off. Mrs. Leas carried 
the little girl in her arms, and how she got off she 
doesn't know. Every house around them, she said, 
was crushed, and the people either killed or drowned. 
Thugs at Their Work. 

One of the most dreadful features of this catastrophe 
has been the miserable weakness displayed by the 
authorities of Johnstown and the surrounding boroughs. 
Johnstown needed them sadly for forty-eight hours. 
There is supposed to be a Burgess, but like most bur- 
gesses he is a shadowy and mythical personage. If 
there had been concerted and intelligent action the fire 
in the debris at the dam could have been extinguished 
within a short time after it started. Too many cooks 
spoiled this ghastly broth. 

Even now if dynamite or some other explosive was 
intelligently applied the huge mass of wreckage which 
has up to the present time escaped the flame, and no 
doubt contains a number of bodies, could be saved 
from fire. 

This, however, is a matter of small import compared 
with the immunity granted the outrageous and open 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 63 

graveyard robbery and disgusting thievery which have 
thriven bravely since Friday morning. 

Foreigners and natives carrying huge sacks, and In 
some mstances even being assisted by horses and carts, 
have been busily engaged hunting corpses and stealing 
such valuables as were to be found in the wreckage. 

Dozens of barrels of strong liquor have been res- 
cued by the Hungarian and Polish laborers from 
among the ruins of saloons and hotels and the con- 
tents of the same have been freely indulged in. This 
has led to an alarming debauchery, which is on the 
increase. All day the numbers of the drunken crowd 
have been augmented from time to time by fresh 
arrivals from the surrounding districts. 

Those who have suffered from the tidal wave have 
become much embittered against the law breakers. 
There have been many small fights and several small 
riots in consequence. This has been regarded with 
apprehension by the State authorities, and Adjutant 
General Hastings has arrived at Johnstown to ex- 
amine into the condition of affairs and to guard the 
desolated district with troops. The Eighteenth regi- 
ment, of Pittsburgh, has tendered its services to this 
work, but has received no reply to its tender. 

General Hastings estimates that the loss of life is at 
least eight thousand. 

An employee of J. L. Gill, of Latrobe, says he and 
thirty-five other men were in a three-story building in 
Johnstown last night. They had been getting out logs 
for the Johnstown Lumber Company. The man says 



64 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

that the building was swept away and all the men 
were drowned except Gill and his family. 
Handling: the Dead. 

The recovery of bodies has taken up the time of 
thousands all day. The theory now is that most of 
those killed by the torrent were buried beneath the 
debris. To-day's work in the ruins in a large degree 
justifies this assumption. I saw six bodies taken out 
of one pile of rubbish not eight feet square. 

The truth is that bodies are almost as plentiful as 
logs. The whirl of the waters puts the bodies under 
and the logs and boards on top. The rigidity of arms 
standing out at right angles to the bloated and 
bruised bodies show that death in ninety-nine out of a 
hundred cases took place amid the ruins — that is after 
the wreck of houses had closed ov^er them. 

Dr. D. G. Foster, who has been here all day, is of 
the opinion that most of the victims were killed by 
coming into violent contact with objects in the river 
and not by drowning. He found many fractured 
skulls and on most heads blows that would have ren- 
dered those receiving them instantly unconscious, and 
the water did the rest 

Ao^ fewer than tJiree hundred bodies have been taken 
from the river and rubbish to-day. It has been the labor 
of all classes of citizens, and marvellous work has been 
accomplished. The eastern end of Main street, through 
which the waters tore most madly and destructively, and 
in which they left their legacy of wrecked houses, fallen 
trees and dead bodies in a greater degree than in any 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



65 



other portion of the city, has been cleared and the re- 
mains of over fifty have been taken out. 

All over town the searchers have been equally suc- 
cessful. As soon as a body is found it is placed on a 
litter and sent to the Morgue, where it is washed and 




INTERIOR OF THE MORGUE. 

placed on a board for several hours to await identifi- 
cation. 

The Morgue is the Fourth-ward school house, and 

it has been surrounded all day by a crowd of several 

thousand people. At first the crowd were disposed to 

stop 'those bearing the stretchers, uncover the remains 

5 



66 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

and view them, but this was found to be prolific not 
only of great delay, also scenes of agony that not even 
the bearers could endure. 

Now a litter is guarded by a file of soldiers with 
fixed bayonets, and the people are forced aside until 
the Morgue is reached. It is astonishing to find how 
small a number of injured are in the city. Few sur- 
vived. It was death or nothing with the demon of the 
flood. 

Now that an adequate idea of what has befallen them 
has been reached, and the fact that a living has still to 
be made, that plants must be taken care of, that con- 
tracts must be filled, the business people of the city are 
giving their attention to the future. Vice President 
and Director James McMillan, of the Cambria Iron 
Company, says their loss has been well nigh incalcula- 
ble. They are not daunted, but will to-morrow begin 
the work of clearing up the ruins of their mills prepar- 
atory to rebuilding and repairing their works. They 
will also immediately rebuild the Gautier Iron Works. 
This is the disposition of all. 

''Our pockets are light," they say, "but if nothing 
happens all of us will be in business again." The cen- 
tral portion of Johnstown is as completely obliterated 
as if it had never had foundation. The river has made 
its bed upon the sites of hundreds of dwellings, and a 
vast area of sand, mud and gravel marks the old 
channel. 

It is doubtful whether it will be possible even to 
reclaim what was once the business portion of the 



TWE JdHNSTO'WN HORROR. 67 

city. The river will have to be returned to its old bed 
in order to do this. 

Among the lost is H. G. Rose, the District Attor- 
ney of Cambria county, whose body was among the 
first discovered. 

Governor Fo raker, of Ohio, this afternoon sent five 
hundred tents to this city. They will be pitched on 
the hillside to-morrow. They are sadly needed, as the 
buildings that are left are either too damp or too un- 
safe for occupancy. 

Buryingr the Dead. 

The work of burying the dead began this morning 
and has been kept up till late this evening. The 
bruising of the bodies by logs and trees and other 
debris and other exposure in the water have tended to 
hasten decomposition, which has set in in scores of 
cases, making interment instantly necessary. 

Bodies are being buried as rapidly as they are iden- 
tified. The work of Pittsburgh undertakers in exam- 
ining the dead has rendered it possible to keep all 
those embalmed two or three days longer, but this is 
desirable only in cases where identification is dubious 
and no claimants appear at all. 

To-day the cars sent out from Pittsburgh with pro- 
visions for the living were hastily cleared in order to 
contain the bodies of the dead intended for interment 
in suburban cemeteries and in graveyards handy to 
the city. 

Formality is dispensed with. In some instances only 
the undertaker and his assistants are present, arid in 



68 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Others only one or two members of the family of the 
dead. 

The dead are more plentiful than the mourners. 

Death has certainly dealt briefly with the stricken 
city. "Let the dead bury the dead" has been more 
nearly exemplified in this instance than in any other in 
this country's history. The magnitude of the horror 
increases with the hours. It is believed that not less 
than two thousmd of the drowned found lodgment 
beneath the omnium gatherum in the triangle of ground 
that the Conemaugh cut out of the bank between the 
river and the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge. 

The Greatest Funeral Pyre in History. 

The victims were not upon it, but were parts of it. 
Whole houses were washed into the apex of the trian- 
gle. Hen coops, pigstys and stables were added to 
the mass. Then a stove ignited the mass and the 
work of cremation began. It was a literal breast of 
fire. The smoke arose in a huge funnel-shaped 
cloud, and at times it changed to the form of an hour 
glass. At night the flames united would light up this 
misty remnant of mortality. The effect upon the 
living, both ignorant and intelligent, was the same. 
That volume of smoke with its dual form, produced a 
feeling of awe in many that was superior in most cases 
to that felt in the awful moment of the storm's wrath 
on Friday. 

Hundreds stood for hours regarding the smoke and 
wonderinP" whether it foreboded another visitation 
more. dire than its. predecessor. ... . . .. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 69 

The people hereabouts this morning awoke to find 
that nothing was left but a mass of ashes, calcined 
human bones, stoves, old iron and other approximately 
indestructible matter, from which only a light blue 
vapor was arising. General Hastings took precau- 
tions to prevent the extension of the fire to another 
huge pile, a short distance away, and this will be rum- 
maged to-day for bodies of flood victims. 

The Pittsburgh undertakers have contributed more 
to facilitate the preparation of the dead for the graves 
than all others besides. 

There was a disposition on the part of many foreign- 
ers and negroes to raid the houses, and do an all 
around thieving business, but the measures adopted 
by the police had a tendency to frighten them off in 
nearly every case. 

One man was caught in the act of robbing the body 
of an old woman, but he protested that he had got 
nothing and was released. He immediately dis- 
appeared, and it was found afterward that he had 
taken ^loo from the pocket of the corpse. 

A half-breed negro yesterday and this morning was 
doing a thriving business in collecting hams, shoulders, 
chickens and even furniture. He had thieves in his 
employ, and while to some of them he was paying reg- 
ular salaries, others were doing the work for a drink 
of whiskey. The authorities stopped this thing very 
suddenly, but not until a number of the people threat- 
ened to lynch the half breed. In one or two instance 
very narrow escapes from the rope were made. 



70 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Thousands of coffins and rough boxes have already 
arrived, and still the supply is short. They are brought 
in marked to some undertaker, who has a list of his 
dead, and as fast as the coffins come he writes the name 
of its intended tenant and tells the friends (when there 
are any) where to find it. 

How a Funeral Takes Place. 

Two of them go after it, and, carrying it between 
them to the Morgue or to their homes, place the body 
in it and take it to the burial grounds. 

One unfortunate feature of the destruction is the fact 
that some one has been drowned from nearly every 
house in the city, and teams are procurable only with 
the greatest difficulty. 

Dead horses are seen ever)^'where. In one stable 
two horses, fully harnessed, bridled and ready to be 
taken out, stand dead in their stable, stiff and upright. 
In a sand pile near the Pennsylvania Railroad depot a 
horse's hind feet, rump and tail are all that can be 
seen of him. He was caught in the rapidly running 
waters and had been driven into the sand. 

The following telegram from Johnstown has been 
received at Pittsburg : 

" For God's sake tell the sight-seers to keep away 
from Johnstown for the present. What we want is 
people to work, not to look on. "Citizen's Committe." 

Three trains have already been sent out with 
crowded cargoes of sight-seers. At every station 
along the road excited crowds are waiting for an op- 
portunity to get aboard. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR, 71 

That's what would have happened to the owners of 
South Fork if they had put in an appearance. 

There is great indignation among the people of 
Johnstown at the wealthy Pittsburghers who own 
South Fork. They blame them severely for having 
maintained such a frightfully dangerous institution 
there. The feeling among the people was intense. 
If any of the owners of the dam had put in an appear- 
ance in Johnstown they would have been lynched. 

The dam has been a constant menace to this valley 
ever since it has been in existence, and the feeling, 
which has been bitter enough on the occasion of every 
flood hitherto, after this horrible disaster is now at 
fever heat 

Without seeing the havoc created no idea can be 
given of the area of the desolation or the extent of the 
damage. 

Only One Left to Motim. 

An utterly wretched woman stood by a muddy pool 
of water, trying to find some trace of a once happy 
home. She was half crazed with grief, and her eyes 
were red and swollen. As I stepped to her side she 
raised her pale and haggard face, crying : 

"They are all gone. Oh God be merciful to them. 
My husband and my seven dear little children have 
been swept down with the flood and i am left alone. 
We were driven by the raging flood into the garret, 
but the waters followed us there. Inch by inch it kept 
rising until our heads were crushing against the roof. 
It was death to remain. So I raised a window and one 



72 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

by one placed my darlings on some drift wood, trust- 
ing to the Great Creator. As I liberated the last one, 
my sweet little boy, he looked at me and said : 

" * Mamma, you always told me that the Lord would 
care for me ; will he look after me now ? " 

*• I saw him drift away with his loving face turned 
toward me, and with a prayer on my lips for his de- 
liverance he passed from sight forever. The next 
moment the roof crashed in and I floated outside to 
be rescued fifteen hours later from the roof of a house 
in Kernville. If I could only find one of my darlings, 
I could bow to the will of God, but they all are gone. 
I have lost everything on earth now but my life, and I 
will return to my old Virginia home and lay me down 
for my last great sleep.** 

A handsome woman, with hair as black as a raven's 
wing, walked through the depot, where a dozen or 
more bodies were awaiting burial. Passing from 
one to another, she finally lifted the paper covering 
irom the face of a woman, young and with traces 
of beauty showing through the stains of muddy water. 
With a cry of anguish she reeled backward, to be 
caught by a rugged man who chanced to be passing. 
In a moment or so she had calmed herself sufficiently 
to take one more look at the features of her dead. She 
stood gazing at the unfortunate as if dumb. Finally 
turning away with another wild burst of grief she 
said : — 

"And her beautiful hair all matted and her sweet 
face bruised and stained with mud and water." 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



73 



The dead woman was the sister of the mourner. 
The body was placed in a coffin a few minutes later 
and sent away to its narrow house. 

These incidents are but fair samples of the scenes 
familiar to every turn in this stricken city. 




THE AWFUL RUSH OP WATEKS. 



CHAPTER III. 
Tine Horror Increases. 

During the night thirty-three bodies were brought 
to one house. As yet the relief force is not perfectly 
organized and bodies are lying around on boards and 
doors. Within twenty feet of where this was written 
the dead body of a colored woman lies. 

Provision has been made by the Relief Committee 
for the sufferers to send despatches to all parts of the 
country. The railroad company has a track through 
to the bridge. The first train arrived about half-past 
nine o'clock this morning. A man in a frail craft got 
caught in the rapids at the railroad bridge, and it 
looked as if he would increase the already terrible list 
of dead, but fortunately he caught on a rock, where he 
now is and is liable to remain all day. 

The question on every person's lips is — Will the 
Cambria Iron Company rebuild? The wire mill is 
completely wrecked, but the walls of the rolling mill 
are still standing. If they do not resume it is a ques- 
tion whether the town will be rebuilt. The Hrnga- 
rians were beginning to pillage the houses, and the 
arrival of police was most timely. Word had just been 
received that all the men employed by Peabody, the 
Pittsburgh contractor, have been saved. 

(74) 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 75 

The worst part of this disaster has not been told. 
Indeed, the most graphic description that can be writ- 
ten will not tell half the tale. No pen can describe 
nor tongue tell the vastness of this devastation. 

I walked over the greater part of the wrecked town 
this morning, and one could not have pictured such a 
wreck, nor could one have imagined that an entire 
town of this size could be so completely swept away. 

A. J. Haws, one of the prominent men of the town, 
was standing on the hillside this morning, taking a 
view of the wreck. He said : 

" I never saw anything like this, nor do I believe 
any one else ever did. No idea can be had of the 
tremendous loss of property here. It amounts up 
into the millions. I am going to leave the place. I 
never will build here." 

I heard the superintendents and managers of the 
Cambria Iron Works saying they doubted if the v/orks 
will be rebuilt. This would mean the death blow to 
the place. Mr. Stackhouse, first vice-president of the 
iron works, is expected here to-day. Nothing can be 
done until a meeting of the company is held. 
Preparations for Burial. 

Adjutant General Hastings, who is in charge of the 
relief corps at the railroad station, has a force of car- 
penters at work making rough boxes in which to bury 
the dead. They will be burled on the hill, just above 
the town, on ground belonging to the Cambria Iron 
Company. The graves will be numbered. No one 
will be buried that has not been identified without a 



76 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



careful description being taken. General Hastings 
drove fifty-eight miles across the country in order to 
get here, and as soon as he came took charge. He 
has the whole town organized, and in connection with 




PREPARATIONS FOR BURIAL. 



L. S. Smith has commenced the building of bridges 
and clearing away the wrecks to get out the dead 
bodies. 

General Hastings has a large force of men clearing 
private tracks of the Cambria Iron Company in order 
that the small engines can be put. to work bringing up 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 77 

the dead that have been dragged out of the river at 
points below. 

The bodies are being brought up and laid out in 
freight cars. Mr. Kitde, of Ebensburg, has been 
deputized to take charge of the valuables taken from 
the bodies and keep a registry of them, and also to 
note any marks of identification that may be found. 
A number of the bodies have been stripped of rings 
or bracelets and other valuables. 

Over six hundred corpses have now been taken out 
on the south side of Stony Creek, the greater portion 
of which have been identified. 

Send Us Coffins. 

Preparations for their burial are being carried on as 

rapidly as possible, and "coffins, cofifins,'* is the cry. 

No word has been received anywhere of any being 

shipped. Even rough boxes will be gladly received. 

Those that are being made, and in which many of the 

bodies are being buried, are of rough unplaned 

boards. One hundred dead bodies are laid out at the 

soap factor)^ while two hundred or more people are 

gathered there that are in great distress. Boats are 

wanted. People have the greatest difficulty in getting 

to the town. 

Strugrgling for Order. 

Another account from Johnstown on the second day 
after the disaster says: 

The situation here has not changed, and yesterday's 
estimates of the loss of life do not seem to be exag- 
gerated.- Six -hundred bodies are -now -lying in Johnsv 



78 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

town, and a large number have already been buried. 
Four immense relief trains arrived last night, and the 
survivors are being well cared for. 

Adjutant General Hastings, assisted by Mayor 
Sanger, has taken command at Johnstown and vicinity. 
Nothing is legal unless it bears the signature of the 
former. The town itself is guarded by Company H, 
Sixth regiment, Lieutenant Leggett in command. New 
members were sworn in by him, and they are making 
excellent soldiers. 

Special police are numerous, and the regulations are 
so strict that even the smoking of a cigar is prohibited. 
General Hastings expresses the opinion that more 
troops are necessary. 

Mr. Alex. Hart is in charge of the special police. 
He has lost his wife and family. Notwithstanding his 
great misfortune he is doing the work of a Hercules 
in his own way. 

Firemen and Soldiers Arriving. 

Chief Evans, of the Pittsburgh Fire Department, ar- 
rived this evening with engines and several hose carts, 
with a full complement of men. A large number of 
Pittsburgh physicians came on the same train. 

A squad of Battery B, under command of Lieuten- 
ant Brown, the forerunners of the whole battery, ar- 
rived at the improvised telegraph ofHce at half-past six 
o'clock. ^ Lieutenant Brown went at once to Adjutant 
General Hastings and reported for duty. 

A portion of the police force of Pittsburgh and Alle- 
ghany are on duty, and better order is maintained than 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 79 

prevailed yesterday. Communication has been re- 
stored between Cambria City and Johnstown by a foot 
bridge. 

The work of repairing the tracks between Sang 
Hollow and Johnstown is going on rapidly, and trains 
will probably be running by to morrow morning. Not 
less than fifteen thousand strangers are here. 

The unruly element has been put down and order is 
now perfect. The Citizen's Committee are in charge 
and have matters well organized. 

A proclamation has just been issued that all men 
who are able to work must report for work or leave 
the place. " We have too much to do to support 
idlers," says the Citizen's Committee, '* And will not 
abuse the generous help that is being sent by doing 
so." From to-morrow all will be at work. 

Money now is greatly needed to meet the heavy pay 
rolls that will be incurred for the next two weeks. W. 
C. Lewis, Chairman of the Finance Committee, is 
ready to receive the same. 

Fail of the "Wall of Water. 

Mr. Crouse, proprietor of the South Fork Fishing 
Club Hotel, came to Johnstown this afternoon. He 
says : — 

"When the dam of Conemaugh Lake broke the 
water seemed to leap, scarcely touching the ground. 
It bounded down the valley, crashing and roaring, car- 
rying everything before it. For a mile its front seemed 
like a solid wall twenty feet high." 

Freight Agent Dechert, when tlie great wall diat 



go T^HE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

held the body of water began to crumble at the top sent 
a message begging the people of Johnstown for God's 
sake to take to the hills. He reports no serious acci- 
dents at South Fork. 

Richard Davis ran to Prospect Hill when the water 
raised. As to Mr. Dechert's message, he says just 
such have been sent down at each flood since the lake 
was made. The warning so often proved useless that 
little attention was paid to it this time. " I cannot de- 
scribe the mad rush," he said. "At first it looked like 
dust. That must have been the spray. I could see 
houses going down before it like a child's play blocks 
set on edge in a row. As it came nearer I could see 
houses totter for a moment, then rise and the next 
moment be crushed like Ggg shells against each other." 
To Rise Phoenix -like. 

James McMillin, vice-president of the Cambria Iron 
Works, was met this afternoon. In a conversation he 
said : 

" I do not know what our loss is. I cannot even 
estimate, as I have not the faintest idea what it may 
be. The upper mill is totally wrecked — damaged be- 
yond all possibility of repairs. The lower mill is dam- 
aged to such an extent that all machinery and build- 
incrs are useless. 

'*The mills will be rebuilt immediately. I have sent 
out orders that all men that can must report at the 
mill to-morrow to commence cleaning up. I do not 
think the building was insured against a flood. The 
great-thing v,^ '.^^antis to get theTniilin 'operation ag-aifi." 




IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH. 



■HI 





ONLY A MINUTE S WARNING. 




ALL PERISHED IN THE FLOOD. 




SWEPT AWAY BY THE TORRENT. 







LYNCHING AND DKOWMNG llUhVEb 




MADE ORPHANS BY THE FLOOD. 



.1 V* 



f ' ' "«* - ,' . 







— — - — — ^h^ *_iSu 

VALLEY OF THE CONEMAUGH NEAR JOHNSTOWN. 




MEETING OF FRIExNDS AND RELATIVES AFTER THE FLOOD. 




SOURCE OF THE CONEMAUGH RIVER. 




THE MILITIA AT REST. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 81 

The Gautler Wire Works was completely destroyed. 
The buildings will be immediately rebuilt and put in 
operation as soon as possible. The loss at this point 
is complete. The land on which it stood is to-day as 
barren and desolate as if it were in the midst of the 
Sahara Desert. 

The Cambria Iron Company loses its great supply 
stores. The damage to the stock alone will amount to 
$50,000. 

The building was valued at ^150,000, and is a total 
loss. The company offices which adjoins the store was 
a handsome structure. It was protected by the first 
building, but nevertheless is almost totally destroyed. 

The Dartmouth Club,at which employees of the works 
boarded, was carried away in the flood. It contained 
many occupants at the time. None were saved. 

Estimates of the losses of the Cambria Iron Com- 
pany given are from $2,000,000 to $2,500,000. But 
little of this can be recovered. 

History of the Works. 

The Cambria Iron "VVorks at Johnstown were built in 
1853. It v/as the second largest plant of its kind in 
the counti*y, and was completely swept away. Its 
capacity of finished steel per annum was 180,000 net 
tons of steel rails and 20,000 net tons of steel in other 
shapes. The mill turned out steel rails, spike bars, 
angles, flats, rounds, axles, billets and wire rods. 
There were nine Siemens and forty-two reverbatory 
heating furnaces, one seven ton and two 6,000 pound 
hammers and three trains of rolls. 
6 



82 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

The Bessemer Steel Works made their first blow 
July ID, 1 87 1, and they contained nine gross ton con- 
verters, with an annual capacity of 200,000 net tons of 
ingots. In 1878 two fifteen gross tons Siemens open- 
hearth steel furnaces were built, with an annual 
capacity of 20,000 net tons of ingots. 

The Cambria Iron Company also owns the Gautier ; 
Steel Works at Johnstown, which were erected in 
1878. 

The rolling mill produced annually 30,000 net tons 
of merchant bar steel of every size and for every pur- 
pose. The wire mill had a capacity alone of 30,000 
tons of fence wire. 

There are numerous bituminous coal mines near 

Johnstown, operated by the Cambria Iron Company, 

the Euclid Coal Company and private persons. There 

were three woolen mills, employing over three hundred 

hands and producing an annual product valued at 

$300,000. 

Awful Work of the Flames. 

Fifty acres of town swept clean. One thousand two 
hundred buildings destroyed. Eight thousand to ten 
thousand lives lost. 

That is the record of the Johnstown calamity as it 
looked to me just before dark last night. Acres of 
the town were turned into cemeteries, and miles of the 
river bank were involuntary storage rooms for house- 
hold goods. 

From the half ruined parapet at the end of the stone 
railroad bridge, in Johnstown proper, one sees sights 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 83 

SO gruesome that none but the soulless Hungarian 
and Italian laborers can command his emotions. 

At my right is a fiery pit that is now believed to have 
heen the faneral jpyre of almost a thmisand persons. 
Streets Obliterated. 

The fiercest rush of the current was straight across 
the lower, level part of Johnstown, where it entirely 
obliterated Cinder, Washington, Market, Main and 
Walnut streets. These streets were fro.m a half to 
three-quarters of a mile in length, and were closely 
crowded along their entire course with dwellings and 
other buildings, and there is now no more trace of 
streets or houses than there is at low tide on the beach 
at Far Rockaway. 

• In the once well populated boroughs of Conemaugh 
and Woodvale there are to-night literally but two 
buildings left, one the shell of the Woodvale Woolen 
Mill and the other a sturdy brick dwelling. 

The buildings which were swept from twenty out of 
the thirty acres of devastated Johnstown were crowded 
against the lower end of the big stone bridge in a mass 
200 yards wide, 500 yards broad and from 60 to 100 
feet deep. They were crushed and split out of shape 
and packed together like playing cards. 

When you realize that in nearly every one of these 
buildings there were at least one human being, while in 
some there were as many as seventy-five, it is easy to 
comprehend how awful it was when tliis mass began 
to burn fiercely last night. It was known that a large 
number of persons were imprisoned in the debris, for 



84 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

they could be plainly seen by those on shore, but it 
was not until people stopped to think and to ask them- 
selves questions, which startled them in a ghasdy way, 
that the fact became plain that instead of a pitiful 
hundred or two of victims at least a thousand were in 
that roaring, crackling, loathsome, blazing mass upon 
the surface of the water and in the huge, inaccessible 
arches of the big bridge. 

Charred Bodies. 

Charred bodies could be seen here and there all 
through the glowing embers. There was no attempt 
to check the fire by the authorities, nor for that matter 
did they try to stop the robbing of the dead, nor any 
other glaring violation of law. The fire is spreading 
toward a large block of crushed buildings further up 
the stream. There is a broad stretch of angry water 
above and below, while over there, just opposite the 
end of the bridge, is the ruin of the great Cambria 
Iron Works, which have been damaged to the extent 
of over ^1,000,000. 

The Gautier Steel Works have been wiped away, 
and are represented by a loss of ^1,000,000 and a big 
hole. 

The Holbert House, owned by Renford Brothers, 
has entirely disappeared. It was a five story building, 
was the leading hotel of Johnstown, and contained a 
hundred rooms. Of the seventy-five guests who were 
in it when the flood came, only eight have been saved. 
Most of them were crushed by the fall of the walls 
and flooring. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 85 

Hundreds of searching parties are looking in the 
muddy ponds and among the wreckage for bodies, 
and they are being gathered in ghastly heaps. 

In one building among the bloated victims, I saw 
a young and well-dressed man and woman, still locked 
in each other's arms, a young mother with her babe 
pressed with delirious tenacity to her breast, and on a 
small pillow was a tiny babe a few hours old, which the 
doctors said must have been born in the water. It is 
said that 720 bodies have so far been recovered, or 
have been located. / 

The coroner of Westmoreland county is ordering 
coffins by the carload. 

In the Raging- "Waters. 

A dispatch from Derry says : In this city the poor 

people in the raging waters cried out for aid that never 

came. More than one brave man risked his life in 

trying to save those in the flood. Every hour details 

of some heroic action are brought to light. In many 

instances the victims displayed remarkable courage 

and gave their chances for rescue to friends with them. 

Sons stood back for mothers, and were lost while their 

parents were taken out. Many a son went down to a 

watery grave that a sister or a father might be saved. 

Such instances of sacrifice in the face of fearful danger 

are numerous. 

The Force of the "Waters. 

One can estimate the force of the water when it is 

known that it carried locomotives down the mountain 

side and turned them upside down where they are now 



86 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

lying-. Long trains of cars have been derailed and 
carried great distances from the railroads. 

The first sight that greeted the men at nine this 
morning was the body of a beautiful woman lying 
crushed and mangled under the ponderous wheels of 
a gondola car. The clothing was torn to shreds. Dr. 
Berry said that he never saw such intense pain pic- 
tured on a face before. 

Terrible Stories. 

At this time of writing it is impossible to secure the 
names of any of the lost. Every person one meets 
along the road has some horrible tale of drowned and 
dead bodies recovered. 

One thousand people or more were buried and 
crushed in the great fire. The flats below Conemaugh 
are full of cars with many dead bodies lying under 
them. At Sang Hollow a man named Duncan sat on 
the roof of a house and saw his father and mother die 
in the attic below him. The poor fellow was powerless 
to help them, and he stood there wringing his hands 
and tearing his hair. 

A man was seen clinging to a tree, covered with 
blood. He was lost with the others. 

Long after dark the flames of fire shot high above 
the burning mass of timber, lighting the vast flood of 
rushing waters on all sides. 

The Dead. 

Dead bodies are being picked up. The train master, 
E. Pitcairn, has been working manfully directing the 
rescuing of dead bodies at Nineveh. In a ten acre 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 87 

field seventy-five bodies were taken out within a half 
mile of each other. Of this number only five were 
men, the rest being women and children. Many beau- 
tiful young girls, refined in features and handsomely 
dressed, were found, and women and young mothers 
with their hair matted with roots and leaves are con- 
stantly being removed. 

The wrecking crew which took out these bodies are 
confident that 1 50 bodies are lying buried in the sand 
and under the debris on those low-lying bottom lands. 
Some of the bodies were horribly mangled, and the 
features were twisted and contorted as if they had died 
in the most excrutiating agony. Others are found 
lying stretched out with calm faces. 

Many a tear was dropped by the men as they 
worked away removing the bodies. An old lady with 
fine gray hair was picked up alive, although every 
bone in her body was broken. Judging from the num- 
ber of women and children found in the swamps of 
Nineveh, the female portion of the population suffered 
the most. 

A Fatal Tree. 

Mr. O' Conner was at Sang Hollow when the flood 
began. He remained there through the afternoon and 
night, and he states that there was a fatal tree on the 
island against which a number of people were dashed 
and instantly killed. Their bodies were almost tied in 
a knot doubled over the tree by the force of the cur- 
rent. Mr. O'Conner says that the first man who came 
down had his brains knocked out against this obstruc- 



^8 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

tion. In fact, those who hit the tree met the same fate 

and were instantly killed under the pile of driftwood 

collected there. He could give no estimate of the 

number lost at this point, but says that it is certainly 

large. 

Braves Death for His Family. 

One of the most thrilling incidents of the disaster 
was the performance of A. J. Leonard, whose family 
reside in Morrellville, a short distance below this point. 
He was at work here, and hearing that his house had 
been swept away determined at all hazards to ascer- 
tain the fate of his family. The bridges having been 
carried away he constructed a temporary raft, and 
clinging to it as close as a cat to the side of a fence, 
he pushed his frail craft out in the raging torrent and 
started on a chase which, to all who were watching, 
seemed to mean an embrace in death. 

Heedless of cries " For God's sake go back, you 
will be drowned," and " Don't attempt it," he per- 
severed. As the raft struck the current he threw off 
his coat and in his shirt sleeves braved the stream. 
Down plunged the boards and down went Leonard, 
tut as it rose he was seen still clinging. A mighty 
shout arose from the throats of the hundreds on the 
banks, who were now deeply interested, earnestly 
hoping he would successfully ford the stream. 

Down again went his bark, but nothing, it seemed, 
could shake Leonard off. The craft shot up in the air 
apparently ten or twelve feet, and Leonard stuck to it 
tenaciously. Slowly but surely he worked his boat to 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 89 

the other side of the stream, and after what seemed an 
awful suspense he finally landed amid ringing cheers 
of men, women and children. 

The last seen of him he was making his way down 
a mountain road in the direction of the spot where his 
house had lately stood. His family consisted of his 
wife and three children. 

An Ang-el in the Mud. 

The Pennsylvania Railroad Company's operators at 
Switch Corner, which is near Sang Hollow, tell thrill- 
ing stories of the scenes witnessed by them on Friday 
afternoon and evening. Said one of them : 

"In order to give you an idea of how the tidal wave 
rose and fell, let me say that I kept a measure and 
timed the rise and fall of the water, and in forty- 
eight minutes it fell four and a half feet. 

"I believe that when the water goes down about 
seventy-five children and fifty grown persons will be 
found among the weeds and bushes in the bend of the 
river just below the tower. 

"There the current was very strong, and we saw 
dozens of people swept under the trees, and I don't 
believe that more than one in twenty came out on the 
other side." 

"They found a little girl in white just now," said one 
of the other operators. 

"Good God!" said the chief operator, "she isn't 
dead, is she ! " 

"Yes ; they found her in a clump of willow bushes, 
kneeling on a board, just about the way we saw her 



90 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

when she went down the river." Turning to me he 
said : — 

"That was the saddest thing we saw all day yester- 
day. Two men came down on a little raft, with a 
little girl kneeling between them, and her hands raised 
and praying. She came so close to us we could see 
her face, and that she was crying. She had on a white 
dress and looked like a little angel. She went under 
that cursed shoot in the willow bushes at the bend like 
all the rest, but we did hope she would get through 
alive." 

"And so she was still kneeling," he said to his com- 
panion, who had brought the unwelcome news. 

" She sat there," was the reply, "as if she were still 
praying, and there was a smile on her poor little face, 
though her mouth was full of mud." 

Ail agreed in saying that at least one hundred peo- 
ple were drowned below Nineveh. 
Direful Incidents. 

The situation at Johnstown grows worse as fuller 
particulars are being received in Pittsburgh. 

This morning it was reported that three thousand 
people were lost in the flood. In the afternoon this 
number was increased to six thousand, and at this writ- 
ing despatches place the number at ten thousand. 

It Is the most frightful destruction of life that has 
ever been known in the United States. 
Vampires at Hand. 

It Is stated that already a large gang of thieves and 
vampires have descended on and near the place. Their 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 91 

presumed purpose is to rob the dead and ransack the 
demolished buildings. 

The Tenth regiment of the Pennsylvania National 
Guard has been ordered out to protect property. 

A telegram from Bolivar says Lockport did not 
suffer much, but that sixty-five families were turned 
out of their homes. The school at that place is filled 
with mothers, fathers, daughters and children. 
Noble Acts of Heroism. 

Edward Dick, a young railroader living in the place, 
saw an old man floating down the river on a tree 
trunk whose agonized face and streaming gray hair 
excited his compassion. He plunged into the torrent, 
clothes and all, and brought the old man safely ashore. 
Scarcely had he done this when the upper story of a 
house floated by on which Mrs. Adams, of Cambria, 
and her two children were borne. He plunged in 
again, and while breaking through the tin roof of the 
house cut an artery in his left wrist, but, although 
weakened with loss of blood, succeeded in saving both 
mother and children. 

George Shore, another Lockport swimmer, pulled 
out William Jones, of Cambria, who was almost ex- 
hausted and could not possibly have survived another 
twenty minutes in the water. 

John Decker, who has some celebrity as a local 
pugilist, was also successful in saving a woman and 
boy, but was nearly killed in a third attempt to reach 
the middle of the river by being struck by a huge log. 

The most miraculous fact about the people who 



92 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

reached Bolivar alive was how they passed through 
the falls half way between Lockport and Bolivar. The 
seething waters rushed through that barrier of rock 
with a noise which drowned that of all the passing 
trains. Heavy trees were whirled high in the air out 
of the water, and houses which reached there whole 
were dashed to splinters against the rocks. 
A Tale of Horror. 

On the floor of William Mancarro's house, groaning 
wich pain and grief, lay Patrick Madden, a furnace 
man of the Cambria Iron Company. He told of his 
terrible experience in a voice broken with emotion. 
He said : "When the Cambria Iron Company's bridge 
gave way I was in the house of a neighbor, Edward 
Garvey. We were caught through our own neglect, 
like a great many others, and a few minutes before 
the houses were struck Garvey remarked that he w^as 
a good swimmer, and could get away no matter how 
high the water rose. Ten minutes later I saw him and 
his son-in-law drowned. 

" No human being could swim in that terrible tor- 
rent of debris. After the South Fork reservoir broke 
I was flung out of the building and saw, when I rose 
to the surface of the water, my wife hanging upon a 
piece of scantling. She let it go and was drowned 
almost within reach of my arm and I could not help or 
save her. I caught a log and floated with it five or six 
miles, but it was knocked from under me when I went 
over the dam. I then caught a bale of hay and was 
taken out by Mr. Morenrow. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 93 

A despatch from Greensburg says the day express, 
which left Pittsburgh at eight o'clock on Friday morn- 
ing was lying at Johnstown in the evening at the time 
the awful rush of waters came down the mountains. 
We haye been informed by one who was there that the 
coach next to the baggage car w^as struck by the rag- 
ing flood, and with its human freight cut loose from 
the rest of the train and carried down the stream. All 
on board, it is feared, perished. Of the passengers 
who were left on the track, fifteen or more who endea- 
vored to flee to the mountains were caught, it is 
thought, by the flood, and likewise carried to destruc- 
tion. Samuel Bell, of Latrobe, was conductor on the 
train, and he describes the scene as the most appalling 
and heart-rending he ever witnessed. 

A special despatch from Latrobe says : — "The spe- 
cial train which left the Union Station, Pittsburgh, at 
half-past one arrived at Nineveh Station, nine miles 
from Johnstown, last evening at five o'clock. The 
train was composed of four coaches and locomotive, 
and carried, at the lowest calculation, over nine hundred 
persons, including the members of the press. The 
passengers were packed in like sardines and many were 
compelled to hang out upon the platform. A large 
proportion of the passengers, were curiosity seekers, 
while there was a large sprinkling of suspicious looking 
characters, who had every appearance of being crooks 
and wreckers, sudh as visit all like disasters for the sole 
purpose of plundering and committing kindred dep- 
redations. 



94 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



When the train reached Nineveh the report spreaa 
through it that a number of bodies had been fished out 
of the water and were awaiting identification at a neigh- 
boring planing mill. I stopped off to investigate the 
rumor, while the balance of the party journeyed on 




TAKING DEAD BODIES FROM A ROOF. 

toward Sang Hollow, the nearest approach to Johns- 
town by rail. I visited Mumaker's planing mills and 
found that the report was true. 

All day long the rescuers had been at work, and at 
this writing (six o'clock) they have taken out seventy- 
eight dead bodies, the majority of whom are women 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 95 

and children. The bodies are horribly mutilated and 
covered with mud and blood. Fifteen of them are 
those of men. Their terribly mutilated condition makes 
identification for the present almost impossible. One 
of the bodies found was that of a woman, apparently 
about thirty-five years of age. "^ 

Every conveyance that could be used has been * 
pressed into service. Latrobe is all agog with excite- 
ment over the great disaster. Almost every train 
takes out a load of roughs and thugs who are bent on 
mischief. They resemble the mob that came to Pitts- 
burgh during the riots. 

Measures of Relief. 

Pittsburgh is in a wild state of excitement. A large 
mass meeting was held yesterday afternoon and in a 
short space of time $i,ooo was subscribed for the suf- 
ferers. 

The Pennsylvania company has been running trains 
every hour to the scene of the disaster or as near it as 
they can get. Provisions and a large volunteer relief 
corps have been sent up. The physicians have had 
an enthusiastic meeting at which one and all freely of- 
fered their services. 

The latest project is to have the wounded and the 
survivors who fled to the hillsides from the angry rush 
of waters brought to Pittsburgh. The Exposition So-; 
ciety has offered the use of its splendid new building 
as a temporary hospital. All the hospitals in the city 
have also offered to care for the sufferers free of 
charge to the full limit of their capacity. 



96 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Word has been received at Allegheny Junction, 
twenty-two miles above Pittsburgh, from Leechburg 
that a woman and two children were seen floating past 
there at five o'clock yesterday morning on top of some 
wreckage. They were alive, and their pitiful cries for 
help drew the attention of the people on the shore. Some 
men got a boat and endeavored to reach the sufferers. 

As they rowed out in the stream the woman could 
be heard calling to them to save the children first. 

The men made a gallant effort. It was all without 
avail, as the strong current and floating masses of 
debris prevented them from reaching the victims, and 
the latter floated on down the stream until their de- 
spairing cries could no longer be heard. 

Mrs. Chambers, of Apollo, was swept away when 
her house was wrecked duringf the nio-ht. She had 
gone to bed when the flood came and she Kad not 
time to dress. Fortunately she managed to secure a 
hold , on some wreckage which was being carried past 
her. She kept her hold until her cries were heard by 
some men a short distance above Leechburg. They 
got out a boat and succeeded in reaching her, and took 
her to a house near the bank of the river. When they 
got her there it was found that she was badly bruised 
and all her clothing had been torn off by the debris 
with which she had come in contact, leaving her 
entirely naked. She was also rescued at Natrona. 
A Liucky Cliang^e of Kesidence. 

Mr. F. J. Moore, of the Western Union ofifice in 
this city, is giving thanks to-day for the fortunate es- 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 97 

cape of his wife and two children from the devastated 
city. As if by some foreknowledge of the impending 
disaster, Mr. Moore had arranged to have his family 
move yesterday from Johnstown and join him in this 
city. Their household goods were shipped on Thurs- 
day, and yesterday just in time to save themselves, the 
little party departed in the single train wh'ch made the 
trip between Johnstown and Pittsburgh. I called on 
Mrs. Moore at her husband's apartments, No. 4 Web- 
ster avenue, and found her completely prostrated by 
the news of the final catastrophe, coupled with the 
dangerous experience through which she and her little 
ones had passed. 

" Oh, it w^as terrible," she said. " The reservoir had 
broken, and before we got out of the house the water 
filled the cellar, and on the way to the depot it was up 
to the carriage bed. Our train left at a quarter to two 
P. M., and at that hour the flood had commenced to 
rise with terrible rapidity. Houses and sheds were 
carried away, and two men were drowned almost under 
our very eyes. People gathered on the roofs to take 
refuge from the water which poured into the lower 
rooms of their dwellings, and many families took fright 
and became scattered beyond hope of being reunited. 
Just as the train pulled out I saw a woman crying bit- 
terly. Her house had been flooded and she had 
escaped, leaving her husband behind, and her fears for 
his safety made her almost crazy. Our house was in 
the lower part of the town, and It makes me shudder 
to think what would have happened had we remained 
7 



98 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

in it an hour longer. So far as I know we were the 
only passengers from Johnstown on the train, and 
therefore I suppose we are the only persons who 
got away in time to escape the culminating dis- 
aster." 

Mrs. Moore's little soil told me how he had seen the 
rats driven out of their holes by the flood and running 
along the tops of the fences. Mr. Moore endeavored 
to get to Johnstown yesterday, but was prevented by 
the suspension of traffic and says he is very glad of it. 
What the Eye Hatli Seen. 

The scenes at Heanemyer's planing mill at Nineveh, 
where the dead bodies are lying, are never to be for- 
gotten. The torn, bruised and mutilated bodies of the 
victims are lying in a row on the floor of the planing 
mill which looks more like the field of Bull Run after 
that disasterous battle than a work shop. The majority 
of the bodies are nude, their clothing having been torn 
off. All along the river bits of clothing — a tiny shoe, 
a baby dress, a mother's evening wrapper, a father's 
coat, and in fact every article of wearing apparel 
imaginable may be seen hanging to stumps of trees 
and scattered on the bank. 

One of the most pitiful sights of this terrible disas- 
ter came to my notice this afternoon when the body of 
a young lady was taken out of the Conemaugh river. 
The woman was apparently quite young, though her 
features were terribly disfigured. Nearly all the cloth- 
ing excepting the shoes was torn off the body. The 
corpse was that of a mother, for although cold in death 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 9^ 

she clasped a young male babe, apparently not more 
than a year old, tightly in her arms. The little one 
was huddled close up to the face of the mother, who 
when she realized their terrible fate had evidently 
raised it to her lips to imprint upon its lips the last kis^ 
it was to receive in this world. The sight forced many 
a stout heart to shed tears. The limp bodies, with 
matted hair, some with holes in their heads, eyes 
knocked out and all bespattered with blood were a 
ghastly spectacle. 

Story of The First Fugitives. 

The first survivors of the Johnstown wreck who ar- 
rived in the city last night were Joseph and Henry 
LaufferandLewDalmeyer, three well known Pittburgh- 
ers. They endured considerable hardship and had 
several narrow escapes with their lives. Their story 
of the disaster can best be told in their own lan- 
guage. Joe, the youngest of the Lauffer brothers, 
said : — 

" My brother and I left on Thursday for Johnstown. 
The night we arrived there it rained continually, and 
on Friday morning it began to flood. I started for the 
Cambria store at a quarter past eight on Friday, and ii> 
fifteen minutes afterward I had to get out of the store 
in a wagon, the water was running so rapidly. We 
then arrived at the station and took the day express 
and went as far as Conemaugh, where we had to stop. 
The limited, however got through, and just as we were 
about to start the bridge at South Fork gave way with 
a terrific crash, and we had to stay there. We then 



100 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

went to Johnstown. This was at a quarter to ten in 
the morning, when the flood was just beginning. The 
whole city of Johnstown was inundated and the people 
all moved up to the second floor. 

Mountains of Water. 

** Now this is where the trouble occurred. These 
poor unfortunates did not know the reservoir would 
burst, and there are no skiffs in Johnstown to escape 
in. When the South Fork basin gave way mountains 
of water twenty feet high came rushing down the Con- 
emaugh River, carrying before them death and destruc- 
tion. I shall never forget the harrowing scene. Just 
think of it ! thousands of people, men, women and chil- 
dren, struggling and weeping and wailing as they were 
being carried suddenly away in the raging current. 
Houses were picked up as if they were but a feather, 
and their inmates were all carried away with them, 
while cries of 'God help me ! ' ' Save me !' 'I am drown- 
ing ! ' * My child ! ' and the like were heard on all sides. 
Those who were lucky enough to escape went to the 
mountains, and there they beheld the poor unfortu- 
nates being crushed among the debris to death without 
any chance of being rescued. Here and there a body 
was seen to make a wild leap into the air and then sink 
to the bottom. 

" At the stone bridge of the Pennsylvania company 
people were dashed to death against the piers. When 
the fire started there hundreds of bodies were burned. 
Many lookers-on up on the mountains, especially the 
women, fainted. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 101 

Mr. Lauffer's brother, Harry, then told his part of 
the tale, which was not less interesting. He said : — 
"We had the most narrow escapes of anybody, and I 
tell you we don't want to be around when anything of 
that kind occurs again. 

"The scenes at Johnstown have not in the least 
been exaggerated, and indeed the worst is to be heard. 
When we got to Conemaugh and just as we were 
about to start the bridge gave way. This left the day 
express, the accommodation, a special train and a 
freight train at the station. Above was the South 
Fork water basin, and all of the trains were well filled. 
We were discussing the situation when suddenly, with- 
out any warning, the whistles of every engine began 
to shriek, and in the noise could be heard the warning 
of the first engineer, * My God ! Rush to the moun- 
tains, the reservoir has burst.' Then, with a thunder- 
ing like peal came the mad rush of waters. No soon- 
er had the cry been heard than those who could with 
a wild leap rushed from the train and up the mounr 
tains. To tell this story takes some time, but the 
moments in which the horrible scene was enacted were 
few. Then came the tornado of water, leaping and 
rushing with tremendous force. The waves had angry 
crests of white and their roar was something deafening. 
In one terrible swath they caught the four trains and 
lifted three of them right off the track, as if they were 
only a cork. There they floated in the river. Think 
of it, three large locomotives and finely varnished Pull- 
mans floating around, and above all the hundreds of 



102 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

poor unfortunates who were unable to escape from 
the car swiftly drifting toward death. Just as we were 
about to leap from the car I saw a mother, with a 
smiling, blue eyed baby in her arms. I snatched it 
from her and leaped from the train just as it was lifted 
off of the track. The mother and child were saved, 
but if one more minute had elapsed we all would have 

perished. 

Beyond the Power of Words. 

" During all of this time the waters kept rushing, 
down the Conemaugh and through the beautiful town 
of Johnstown, picking up everything and sparing 
nothing. 

The mountains by this time were black with people, 
and the moans and sighs from those below brought 
tears to the eyes of the most stony hearted. There in 
that terrible rampage were brothers, sisters, wives and 
husbands, and from the mountain could be seen the 
panic stricken marks in the faces of those who were 
struggling between life and death. I really am unable 
to do justice to the scene, and Its details are almost be- 
yond my power to relate. Then came the burning of 
the debris near the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge. The 
scene was too sickening to endure. We left the spot 
and journeyed across country and delivered many 
notes, letters, etc., that were intrusted to us. 

We rode thirty-one miles in a buckboard, then 
walked six miles, reached Blairsville and journeyed 
again on foot to what is called the " Bow," and from 
thence we arrived home. On our way we met Mr. F. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 103 

Thompson, a friend of ours, who resides in Nineveh, 
and he stated that rescuing parties were busy all day 
at Annom. One hundred and seventy-five bodies 
were recovered at that place. An old couple about 
sixty years of age were rescued from a tree, on which 
they came floating down the stream. They were 
clasped in each other's arms. 

President Harrison's private secretary, Elijah Hal- 
ford, and wife, were on the train which was swept 
away, but escaped and were in the mountains when I 
left. 

Among the lost are Colonel John P. Linton and his 
wife and children. Colonel Linton was prominent in 
the Grand Army of the Republic and in the Knights oi 
Pythias and other orders. He was formerly Auditor 
General of Pennsylvania. 




1- ^^-'*- ■'^ -g - 



NINEVEH STATION, WHERE TWO HUNDRED BODIES WERE FOUND. 



CHAPTER IV. 
IVltAltlplication. of Terrors. 

The handsome brick High School Building is dam- 
aged to such an extent that it will have to be rebuilt 
The water attained the height of the window sills of 
the second floor. Its upper stories formed a refuge 
for many persons. All Saturday afternoon two little 
girls could be seen at the windows frantically calling 
for aid. They had spent all night and the day in the 
building, cut off from all aid. Without food and drink- 
ing water their condition was lametable. Late«in the 
evening the children were removed to higher ground 
and properly cared for. 

A number of persons had been taken from this 

building earlier in the day, but in the excitement the 

children were forgotten. Their names could not be 

obtained. 

Death in Many Forms. 

Morrell Institute, a beautiful building and the old 
homestead of the Morrell family, is totally ruined. The 
water has weakened the walls and foundations to such 
an -extent that there is danger of its collapsing. Many 
families took refuge in this building and were saved. 
Now that the waters have receded there is danger from 
falling walls. All day long the crashing of walls could 
be heard across the river. Before daybreak this morn- 

(104) 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 105 

ing the sounds could not but make one shudder at the 
very thought of the horrible deaths that awaited many 
who had escaped the devastating- flood. 

Library Hall was another of the fine buildings of the 
many in the city that is destroyed. Of the Episcopal 
church not a vestige remains. Where it once stood, 
there is now a placid lake. The parsonage is swept 
away, and the rector of the church, Rev. Mr. Diller, 
was drowned. 

Buried Under Falling Buildings. 

The church was one of the first buildings to fall. It 
carried with it several of the surrounding houses. 
Many of them were occupied. The victims were svrept 
into the comparatively still waters at the bridge, and 
there met death either by fire or Avater. 

James M. Walters, an attorney, spent the night in 
Alma Hall and relates a thrilling story. One of the 
most curious occurrences of the whole disaster was 
how Mr. Walters got to the hall. He has his office 
on the second floor. His home is at No. 135 Walnut 
street. He siys he was in the house with his family 
when the waters struck it. All was carried away. Mr. 
Walter's family drifted on a roof in another direction. 
He passed down several streets and alleys until he 
came to the hall. His dwelling struck that edifice and 
he was thrown into his own office. 

Long-, Dark Night of Terror. 

About two hundred persons had taken refuge in the 
hall, and were on the second, third and fourth stories. 
The men held a meeting and drew up some rules, 



106 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

which all were bound to respect. Mr. Walters was 
chosen president. Rev. Mr. Beale was put in charge 
of the first floor, A. M. Hart of the second floor, 
Doctor Matthews of the fourth floor. No lights were 
allowed, and the whole night was spent in darkness. 
The sick were cared for. The weaker women and 
children had the best accommodations that could be 
had, while the others had to wait. The scenes were 
most agonizing. Heartrending shrieks, sobs and moans 
pierced the gloomy darkness. The crying of children 
mingled with the suppressed sobs of the'^women. Un- 
der the guardianship of the men all took more hope. 
No one slept during all the long dark night. Many 
knelt for hours in prayer, their supplications mingling 
with the roar of the waters and the shrieks of the 
dying in the surrounding houses. In all this misery 
two women gave premature birth to children. 
Here is a Hero. 
Dr. Matthews is a hero. Several of his ribs were 
crushed by a falling timber and his pains were most 
severe, yet through all he attended the sick. When 
two women in a house across the street shouted for 
help he with two other brave young men climbed 
across the drift and ministered to their wants. No one 
died during the night, but women and children sur- 
rendered their lives on the succeeding day as a result 
of terror and fatigue. Miss Rose Young, one of the 
young ladies in the hall, was frightfully cut and bruised. 
Mrs. Young had a leg broken. All of Mr. Walter's 
family were saved. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 107 

While the loss of property about Brookville, the 
lumber centre of Pennsylvania, by the great flood has 
been enormous, variously estimated at from ^250,000 
to ^500,000, not a single life has been lost. At least 
there have been none reported so far, and I have trav- 
elled over the line from Red Bank, on the Valley road, 
to Dubois, on the low grade division. Every creek is 
swollen to many times its natural size. A great deal 
of the low-lying farm lands and roads in places have 
water enough over them to float an ordinary steam- 
boat. 

Leaving Pittsburgh Saturday morning on the valley 
road, we ran past millions and millions of feet of lum- 
ber. From the city to the junction opposite Freeport 
the river was almost choked with debris of broken and 
shattered houses. In places the river was fairly black 
with floating masses of lath, shingles, roofs, floors and 
other lumber that had formerly been houses. The 
sight was appalling and spoke louder than any pen 
can describe. 

At Red Bank the river was filled with a different 
kind of lumber, including huge saw logs ready for 
cutting. From the estimates of an old lumber man 
who was on the train I was told that between the 
stations named we passed at least ten million feet of 
lumber, which means a loss of fully ^100,000 to the 
owners. A big. portion of this came out of the 
Clarion river, the estimated money loss from tliat 
section alone being anywhere from $500,000 to 
$750,000. 



108 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

All along the Allegheny river were gathered people 
tiying to catch the logs, risking their lives, for the logs 
swept down the river in a current that was running 
fully ten miles an hour. The work was very hazard- 
ous. The catchers are allowed by law six and a quar- 
ter cents for each log captured, and the river was 
almost lined with people trying to save the property. 

At Red Bank, which we left at noon, there were at 
least six feet of water expected from Oil City, and with 
it, according to the reports from up the river, was an 
immense amount of lumber. Leaving the valley road 
at Red Bank we went up the low grade division to 
Bryant, where immense sawmills, the largest in the 
vicinity are located. The current was rushing along 
at a rate anywhere from twelve to fifteen miles an 
hour, tossing the huge logs around like so many 
toothpicks and carrying everything before them. So 
great v/as the current and mass of logs that the big 
iron bridge at Reynoldsville, sixteen miles above 
Brookville, was swept away, as were two wagon 
bridges and several small foot bridges. 

Hundreds Homeless and Suffering. 

Many houses here and there along Red Bank 
Creek were turned upside down, some of them float- 
ing clear away, while the more secure ones were 
flooded wifh water clear into the second floors. Many 
of the smaller cottages and shanties were covered, 
leaving only the peaks of the roofs sticking out to 
show the spots that families had but a few hours before 
called home. All along the railroad track was piled 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 109 

the few household effects, furniture, bedding, tables 
and clothes which the poor owners had saved before 
they were forced out on the high ground. These 
same people had gone to bed last evening thinking 
themselves safe from the high water, only to be wak- 
ened about midnight by the noise of the rushing floods 
and the huge saw logs bumping against their homes. 
The very narrow escapes that some of them made 
while getting their families into places of safety would 
fill many pages of this book. 

Floating to Safety on Saw Logrs. 

One man had to mount the different members of his 
family on logs. The mother and children alike sat 
astride of them, and then, with the father on the other 
end, were poled across to the high ground. 

Another man, whose house was in a worse place, 
swam ashore and, throwing a rope back to the mother, 
who was surrounded on the porch of the house by the 
children, yelled for her to tie one end to the little ones 
so he could pull them over the fast running water. 
This operation was continued until the entire family 
was rescued. 

Willing workers from the neighborhood were not 
long in getting huge bonfires started, and with the aid 
of these and dry clothing brought In haste by people 
whose homes stood on higher ground the family were 
soon warmed. 

The same willing hands hastily constructed sheds, 
and with immense bonfires the people were kept warm 
till daylight. Others, more fortunate, were able to 



110 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

save enough from their houses to make themselves 
comfortable for a short season of camping. One poor 
family I noticed had saved enough carpet to make a 
tent out of, and under this temporary shelter the 
mother was doing her best to prepare a meal and at- 
tend to her other household duties. 

Sheltered by Friendly Neighbors. 

In Brookville a great many houses were submerged, 
but no lives were lost. While the people were driven 
from their homes, they were more fortunate than the 
people of Bryants, because they could at once find 
shelter under the roofs of the neighbors' houses. 

All of the saw mills, the chief industry of the town, 
were closed down. Some because the water was over 
the first floor, and others because their entire working 
force were on the creek trying to construct temporary 
booms, by which they expected to save at least a por- 
tion of the property from being swept away. One man 
rigged a boom with the aid of a cable i,6oo feet long 
and thick enough to hold the heaviest steamer. About 
fifty logs were chained together for further protection. 
This arrangement for a time checked the mass of logs, 
but just when everybody was thinking it would stop 
the output a small dam gave way, bringing down with 
it another half million feet of lumber. When this struck 
the temporary boom it parted, as if the huge cable was 
a piece of thread, and the logs shot past. 

Just at Bryants, however, a gorge formed shortly 
after two o'clock Friday afternoon, and within a re- 
markably short time there was a pile of logs wedged 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. HI 

in that stretched back fully a quarter of a mile and the 
top of which was more than ten feet high. This of 
course changed the course of the stream a little, but 
the natural gorge had saved enough logs to amount to 
more than ^100,000 in money. 

The following comments by one of our journals sum 
up the situation after receiving the dreadful news of the 
three preceding days : 

The Great Calamity. 

The appalling catastrophy which has spread such 
awful havoc through the teeming valley of the Cone- 
maugh almost surpasses belief and fairly staggers im- 
agination. Without yet measuring its dire extent, 
enough is known to rank it as the greatest calamity of 
the natural elements which this country has ever wit- 
nessed. Nothing in our history short of the deadly 
blight of battle has approached this frightful cataclysm, 
and no battle, though destroying more life, has ever 
left such a ghastly trail of horror and devastation. It 
seems more like one of those terrible convulsions of 
nature from which we have hitherto been happily 
spared, but wdiich at rare intervals have swallowed 
up whole communities in remote South American or 
oriental lands. 

Ingenious and masterful as the human intellect is in 
guiding and controlling the ordinary forces of nature, 
how impotent and insignificant it appears in the pres- 
ence of such a transcendent disaster ! It is well niofh 
inconceivable that a great section throbbing with pop- 
ulous towns, and resonant with the hum of industry, 



112 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

should be wiped out in the twinkling of an eye by a 
might}'', raging torrent, more consuming than fire and 
more violent than the earthquake. The suddenness 
of the blow and the impossibility of communicating 
with the scene add to the terror of the event. The 
sickening spectacle of ruin and death which will be re- 
vealed when the veil of darkness is lifted is left to con- 
jecture. The imagination can scarcely picture the 
dread realities, and it would be difficult to overdraw 
the awful features of a calamity w^hich has every ele- 
ment of horror. 

The River and Lake. 
Nature is so framed at the fated point for such a dis- 
aster that man was called upon for unceasing vigi- 
lance. The Conemaugh makes its channel through a 
narrow valley between high ranges. Numerous streams 
drain the surrounding mountains into its current. 
Along its course swarm frequent hamlets busy with 
the wealth dug from the seams of the earth. The 
chief of these towns, the seat of an immense industry, 
lies in a little basin where the gap broadens to take in 
a converging stream and then immediately narrows 
again, no outlet save the constricted waterway. High 
above stands a great lake which is held in check only 
by an artificial barrier, and which, if once unchained, 
must pour its resistless torrent through this narrow 
gorge like a besom of destruction overwhelming every- 
thing before it. There were all the elements of an 
unparalleled disaster. Years of immunity had given 
a feeling of security for all time without some extra- 



THE JOHNSTOWM HORROR. 113 

ordinary and unexpected occasion. But the occasion 
appeared when in unforseen force the rains descended 
and the floods came, and to-day desolation reigns. 
A Direful Calamity. 

It is impossible yet to measure the extent of the cal- 
amity. But the destruction of life and property must 
be something that it is appalling to think of, and the 
sorrow and suffering to follow are incalculable. A 
solemn obligation devolves upon the people of the 
whole country. We can not remedy the past but we 
can alleviate the present and the future. Thousands of 
families are homeless and destitute; thousands are 
without means of support; perchance, thousands are 
bereft of the strong arms upon which they have relied. 
There is an instant, earnest demand for help. Let 
there be immediate, energetic, generous action. Let 
us do our part to relieve the anguish and mitigate the 
suffering of a community upon whom has fallen the 
most terrible visitation in all our history. 
An Historic Catastrophe. 

When an American Charles Reade wishes in the 
future to weave into the woof of his novel the account 
of some great public calamity he will portray the mis- 
fortune which overwhelmed the towns and villages 
lying In the valley of the Conemaugh River. The 
bursting of a reservoir, and the ensuing scenes of 
death and destruction, which are so vividly described 
in •* Put Yourself in His Place," were not the creatures, 
of Mr. Reade's imagination, but actual occurrences. 
The novelist obtained facts and incidents for one of tlie 



114 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

most Striking chapters in all of his works from the 
events which followed the breaking of the Dale Dyke 
embankment at Sheffield, England, in March, 18641 
when 238 lives were lost and property valued at mil- 
lions was destroyed. 

It will need even more vivid and vigorous descrip- 
tive powers than Mr. Reade possessed to adequately 
delineate the scene of destruction and death now pre- 
sented in Johnstown and the adjacent villages. The 
Sheffield calamity, disastrous as it proved to be, was a 
small affair when compared with this latest reservoir 
accident. The Mill River reservoir disaster of May, 
1874, with its 200 lives lost and ^1,500,000 of property 
destroyed, almost sinks into insignificance beside it. 
The only recorded calamity of the kind which any- 
where approaches it occurred in Estrecho de Rientes, 
in Spain, in April, 1802, when a dam burst and 
drowned 600 persons and swept $7,000,000 worth of 
property away. But above all these calamities in sad 
pre-eminence will stand the Conemaugh disaster. 

But dark as the picture is, it will doubtless be re- 
lieved by many acts of heroism. The world will wait 
to learn if there was not present at Conemaugh some 
Myron Day, whose ride on his bareback steed before 
the advancing wall of water that burst from Mill River 
Dam in 1874, shouting to the unsuspecting people as 
he rode : ^^ The reservoir is breaking ! The flood is 
coming ! Fly I Fly for your lives," was the one miti- 
gating circumstance in that scene of woe and destruc- 
tion. When the full story of the Conemaugh calamity ' 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 115 

is told it will, doubtless, be found that there were many 
deeds of heroism performed, many noble sacrifices 
made and many an act as brave as any performed on 
the field of battle. Already we are told of husbands 
and mothers who preferred to share a watery grave 
with their wives and children sooner than accept safety 
alone. 

Such a calamity, while it makes the heart sick with 
its story of death and suffering, always serves to bring 
out the better and higher qualities in men and women, 
and to illustrate how closely all mankind are bound to- 
gether by ties of sympathy and compassion. This 
fact will be made evident now by the open-handed lib- 
erality which will quickly flow in to relieve the suffering, 
and, as far as possible, to repair the loss caused by 
this historic calamity. 



CHAPTER V. 
The A^wfiil Work: of Deatln. 

The record of June 3rd continues as follows : The 
horror of the situation does not lessen. The latest 
estimate of the number of dead is an official one by- 
Adjutant General Hastings, and it places the number 
between 12,000 and 15,000. 

The uncovering of hundreds of bodies by the reces- 
sion of the waters has already filled the air with pesti- 
lential odors. The worst is feared for the surviving 
population, who must breathe this poisoned atmos- 
phere. Sharp measures prompted by sheer necessity 
have resulted in an almost complete subsidence of 
cowardly efforts to profit by the results of the disaster. 
Thieves have slunk into places of darkness and are no 
longer to be seen at their unholy work. 

All thoughts are now fixed upon the hideous revela- 
tion that awaits the light of day, when the waters shall 
have entirely quitted the ruins that now lie beneath 
them, and shall have exposed the thousands upon 
thousands of corpses that are massed there. 

A sad and gloomy sky, almost as sad and gloomy 
as the human faces under it, shrouded Johnstown to- 
day. Rain fell all day and added to the miseries of 
the wretched people. The great plain where the best 
part of Johnstown used to stand was half covered with 

(116) 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 117 

water. The few sidewalks in the part that escaped 
the flood were inches thick with black, sticky mud, 
through which tramped a steady procession of poor 
women who are left utterly destitute. The tents where 
the people are housed who cannot find other shelter 
were cold and cheerless. 

A Great Tomb. 

The town seemed like a great tomb. The people 
of Johnstown have supped so full of horrors that they 
go about in a sort of a daze and only half conscious 
of their griefs. Every hour, as one goes through the 
streets, he hears neighbors greeting each other and 
then inquiring without show of feeling how many each 
had lost in his family. To-day I heard a gray haired 
man hail another across the street with this question, 

"I lost five ; all are gone but Mary and I," was the 
reply. 

"I am worse off than that," said the first old gentle- 
man. " I have only my grandson left. Seven of us 
gone." 

And so they passed on without apparent excitement. 
They and everyone else had heard so much of these 
melancholy conversations that somehow the calamity 
had lost its significance to them. They treat it exactly 
as if the dead persons had gone away and were com- 
ing back in a week. 

The Ghastly Search. 

The melancholy task of searching the ruins for more 
bodies went on to-day in the soaking rain. There 
were little crowds of morbid curiosity hunters around 



•118 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

each knot of workingmen, but they were not residents 
of Johnstown. All their curiosity in that direction 
was satiated long ago. Even those who come in from 
neighboring towns with the idea of a day's strange and 
ghastly experiences did not care to be near after they 
had seen one body exhumed. There were hundreds 
and thousands of these visitors from the country to- 
day. The effect of the dreadful things they saw and 
heard was to drive most of them to drink. By noon 
the streets were beginning to be full of boisterous and 
noisy countrymen, who were trying to counteract the 
strain on their nerves with unnatural excitement. 
Then the chief of police, foreseeing the unseemly 
sights that were likely to disgrace the streets, drove 
out and kept out all the visitors who had not some 
good reason for their presence. After that and far 
into the evening all the country roads were filled with 
drunken stragglers, who were trying to forget what 
they had seen. 

One thing that makes the work of searching for the 
bodies very slow is the strange way that great masses 
of objects were rolled into intricate masses of rubbish. 
Horrible Masses. 

As the flood came down the valley of the South Fork 
it obliterated the suburb of Woodvale, where not a 
house was left, nor a trace of one. The material they 
had contained rolled on down the valley, over and over, 
grinding it up to pulp and finally leaving it against an 
unusually firm foundation or in the bed of an eddy. 
The masses contain human bodies, but it is slow work 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



119 



to pick them to pieces. In the side of one of them I 
saw the remnants of a carriage, the body of a harness- 
ed horse, a baby cradle and a doll, a tress of woman's 




THE REMAINS OF CAMBRIA CITY. 



hair, a rocking horse, and a piece of beefsteak still 
hanging on a hook. 

The city is now very much better patrolled than it 
has been at any time since the flood occurred. Many 
members of the police force of Pittsburgh came in and 



120 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

offered their services. One of them showed his spirit 
during the first hour by striking a man, whom he saw 
opening a trunk among the rubbish, a tremendous blow 
over the head which knocked him senseless. Several 
big trunks and safes lie in full sight on the desolate 
plain in the lower part of the town, but no one dared 
to touch them after that. 

The German Catholic Church at Cambria City, a 
short distance west of Johnstown, is almost a complete 
wreck. Rather a singular coincidence in connection 
with the destruction of the above is that the Immacu- 
late Conception, that stood in the northwest corner of 
the lecture rooms, stands just as it was when last seen. 
The figure, which is wax, was not even scratched, and the 
clothes, which are made of white silk and deep duchess 
lace, were spotless. This seems strange, when the rag- 
ing water destroyed everything else in the building. 
Hundreds of persons visited the place during the day. 
Ten Bodies an Hour. 

Bodies are now being brought in at lower Cambria 
at the rate of ten per hour. 

A man named Dougherty tells a thrilling story of a 
ride down the river on a log. When the waters 
struck the roof of the house on which he had taken 
shelter he jumped astride a telegraph pole, riding a 
distance of some twenty-three miles, from Johnstown to 
Bolivar, before he was rescued. 

Many inquiries have been made as to why the militia 
did not respond when ordered out by Adjutant Gen- 
eral Hastings. "In the first place it is beyond the 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 121 

General's authority to order troops to a scene of this 
kind unless the Governor first issues a proclamation, 
then It becomes his duty to issue orders." The Gen- 
eral said he was notified that the Pittsburgh troops, 
consisting of the Fourteenth and Eighteenth regi- 
ments, had tendered their services, and no doubt would 
have been of great service. The General consulted 
with the Chief Burgess of Johnstown and Sheriff of 
Cambria county in regard to calling the troops to the 
scene, but both officials strenuously objected, as they 
claimed the people would object to anything of this 
kind. As a proof of this not a breach of peace was 
committed last night in Johnstown and vicinity. 

It has not been generally believed that the district 
in the neighborhood of Kernville would be so ex- 
tremely prolific of corpses as it has proven to be. I 
visited that part of the town where both the river and 
Stony Creek have done their worst. I found that 
within the past twenty-four hours almost one thousand 
bodies had been recovered or were in sight. The 
place is one great repository of the dead. 
The Total May Never be Known. 

The developments of every hour make it more and 
more apparent that the exact number of lives lost in 
the Johnstown horror will never be known. All esti- 
mates made to this time are conservative, and when 
aH is known will doubtless be found to have been too 
small. Over one thousand bodies have been found 
since sunrise to-day, and the most skeptical concede 
that the remains of thousands more rest beneath the 



122 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

debris above the Johnstown bridge. The population 
of Johnstown, the surrounding towns and the portion 
of the valley affected by the flood is, or was, from 50,- 
000 to 55,000. Numerous leading citizens of Johns- 
town, who survived the flood, have been interviewed, 
and the concensus of opinion was that fully thirty per 
cent, of the residents of Johnstown and Cambria had 
been victims of the continued disasters of fire and 
water. If this be true, the total loss of life in the 
entire valley cannot be less than seven or eight thou- 
sand and possibly much greater. Of the thousands 
who were devoured by the flames and whose ashes 
rest beneath the smoking debris above Johnstown 
bridge, no definite information can ever be obtained. 
Hundreds Carried Miles Away. 
As little will be learned of hundreds that sank be- 
neath the current and were borne swiftly down the 
Conemaugh only to be deposited hundreds of miles 
below on the banks and in the driftwood of the raging 
Ohio. Probably one-third of the dead will never be 
recovered, and it will take a list of the missing weeks 
hence to enable even a close estimate to be made of the 
number of lives that were lost. That this estimate can 
never be accurate will be understood when it is remem- 
bered that in many instances whole families and their 
relatives were swept away, and found a common grave 
beneath the wild waste of waters. The total destruc- 
tion of the city leaves no data to even demonstrate that 
the names of these unfortunates ever found place on 
the pages of eternity's history. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 123 

"All indications point to the fact that the death list 
will reach over five thousand names, and in my opinion 
the missing- will reach eight thousand in number," de- 
clared General D. H. Hastings to-night. 

At present there are said to have been twenty-two 
hundred bodies recovered. The great difficulties ex- 
perienced in getting a correct list is the great number 
of morgues. There is no central bureau of informa- 
tion, and to communicate with the different dead 
houses is thie work of hours. The journey from the 
Pennsylvania Railroad morgue to the one in the Fourth 
ward school house in Johnstown occupies at least one 
hour. This renders it impossible to reach all of them 
in one day, particularly as some of the morgues are 
situated at points inaccessible from Johnstown. At 
six o'clock in the evening the 630th body had been re- 
covered at the Cambria depository for corpses. 
None Left to Care for the Dead. 

Kernville is in a deplorable condition. The living 
are unable to take care of the dead. The majority of 
the inhabitants of the town were drowned. A lean-to 
of boards has been erected on the only street remain- 
ing in the town. This is the headquarters for the com- 
mittee that controls the dead. As quickly as the dead 
are brought to this point they are placed in boxes and 
then taken to the cemetery and buried. 

A supply store has opened in the town. A milk- 
man who was overcharging for milk narrowly escaped 
lynching. The infuriated men appropriated all his 
milk and distributed it among the poor and then drove 



124 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

him out of the town. The body of the Hungarian 
who was lynched in an orchard was removed by his 
friends during the night. 

There is but one street left in the town. About 
one hundred and fifty-five houses are standing where 
once there stood a thousand. None of the large 
buildings in what was once a thriving little borough 
have escaped. One thousand people is a low estimate 
of the number of lives lost from this town, but few 
of the bodies have been recovered. It is directly 
above the ruins and the bodies have floated down 
into them, where they burned. A walk through 
the town revealed a desolate sight. Only about 
twenty-five able-bodied men have survived and are 
able to render any assistance. Men and women can 
be seen with black eyes, bruised faces and cut heads. 
Useless Calls for Help. 

The appearance of some of the ladies is heart-rend- 
ing. They were injured in the flood, and since that 
have not slept. Their faces have turned a sickly yel- 
low and dark rings surround the eyes. Many have 
succumbed to nervous prostration. For two days but 
little assistance could be rendered them. The wounded 
remained uncared for in some of the houses cut off by 
the water, and died from their injuries alone. Some 
were alive on Sunday, and their shouts could be heard 
by the people on the shore. 

A man is now in a temporary jail in what is left of 
the town. He was caught stealing a gold watch. A 
shot was fired at him but he was not wounded. The 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 125 

only thing that saved him from lynching was the small- 
ness of the crowd. His sentence will be the heaviest 
that can be given him. 

Services in the chapel from which the bodies were 
buried consisted merely of a prayer by one of the sur- 
vors. No minister was present. Each coffin had a 
descriptive card on it, and on the graves a similar card 
was placed, so that bodies can be removed later by 
friends. 

There are about thirty Catholic priests and nuns 
here. The sisters are devoting themselves to the 
cure of the sick and injured in the hospitals/while the 
priests are doing anything and everything and making 
themselves generally useful. Bishop Phelan, who 
reached here on Sunday evening, returned to Pitts- 
burgh on the three o'clock train yesterday afternoon. 
He has organized the Catholic forces in this neighbor- 
hood, and all are devoting themselves to hard work as- 
siduously. 

Mr. Berlin, who heeded the warning as to the dan- 
ger of the dam, had hurried his wife and two children 
to the hills, but returned himself to save some things 
from his house. While in the building the flood struck 
it and swept it away, jamming it among a lot of other 
houses and hurling them all around with a regular 
churning motion. Mr. Derlin was in a fix, but went 
to his top story, clambered to the roof and escaped 
from there to solid structures and then to the ground. 
His property was erttirely ruined, but he thinks him- 
self fortunate in saving his family. 



126 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Where Woodvale once stood there is now a sea of 
mud, broken but rarely by a pile of wreckage. I 
waded through mud and water up the valley to-day 
over the site of the former village. As has been often 
stated, nothing is standing but the old woollen mills. 
The place is swept bare of all other buildings but the 
ruins of the Gautier wire mill. The boilers of this 
great works were carried one hundred yards from their 
foundations. Pieces of engines, rolls and other ma- 
chinery were swept far away from where they once 
stood. The wreck of a hose carriage is sticking up 
out of the mud. - It belonged to the crack company of 
Johnstown. The engine house is swept away and the 
cellar is filled with mud, so that the site is obliterated, 

A German watchman was on guard at the mill when 
the waters came. He ran for the hillside and suc- 
ceeded in escaping. He tells a graphic story of the 
appearance of the water as it swept down the valley. 
He declares that the first wave was as high as the 
third story of a house. 

The place is deserted. No effort is being made to 
clean off the streets. The mire has formed the grave 
for many a poor victim. Arms and legs are protrud- 
ing from the mud and it makes the most sickening of 
pictures. 

General Hastings' Report, 

In answer to questions from Governor Beaver, 
Adjutant-General Hastings has telegraphed the follow- 
ing: 

" Good order prevailed throughout the city and 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 127 

vicinity last night. Police arrangements are excellent. 
Not one arrest made. No need of sending troops. 
The Mayor of Johnstown and the Sheriff of Cambria 
county, with whom I am in constant communication,' 
request that no troops be sent. I concur in their 
judgment. There is a great outside clamor for troops. 
Do not send tents. Have nine hundred here, which 
are sufficient. I advise you to make a call on the 
general public for money and other assistance." 

'* About two thousand bodies have been rescued and 
the work of embalming and burying the dead is going 
on with regularity. There is plenty of medical assist- 
ance. We have a bountiful supply of food and cloth- 
ing to-day, and the fullest telegraphic facilities are af- 
forded and all inquiries are promptly answered. 

"Have you any instructions or inquiries? The 
most conservative estimates here place the number of 
lives lost at fully 5,000. The prevailing impression is 
that the loss will reach from 8,000 to 10,000. There 
are many widows and orphans and a great many 
wounded — impossible to give an estimate. Property 
destroyed will reach $25,000,000. The popular esti- 
mate will reach $40,000,000 to $50,000,000. 

** I will issue a proclamation to-night to the people 
of the country and to all who sympathize with suffer- 
ing to give aid to our deeply afflicted people. Tell 
them to be of good cheer, that the sympathies of all 
our people, irrespective of section, are with them, and 
wherever the news of their calamity has been carried 
responses of sympathy and aid are coming in. A sin- 



128 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



gle subscription from England just received is for 
|ii,ooo." 

Grand View Cemetery has three hundred buried in 
it. All met death in the flood. They have thirty-five 
naen digging graves. Seven hundred dead bodies in 
the hospital on Bedford street, Conneaut. One hun- 
dred dead bodies in the school-house hospital, Adam 
street, Conneaut. Three hundred bodies found to-day 
in the sand banks along Stony Creek, vicinity of the 
Baltimore and Ohio ; 182 bodies at Nineveh. 




OK A MISSION OF MERCV. 



CHAPTER VI. 
Sh.a.cio\vs of Despair. 

Another graphic account of the fearful calamity is 
furnished by an eye-witness : The dark disaster of 
the day with its attendant terrors thrilled the world and 
drew two continents closer together in the bonds of 
sympathy that bind humanity to man. The midnight 
terrors of Ashtabula and Chatsworth evoked tears of 
pity from every fireside in Christendom, but the true 
story of Johnstown, when all is known, will stand sol- 
itaiy and alone as the acme of man's affliction by the 
potent forces to which humanity is ever subject. 

The menacing clouds still hover darkly over the 
valley of death, and the muttering thunder that ever 
and anon reverberates faintly in the distance seems 
the sardonic chuckle of the demon of destruction as he 
pursues his way to other lands and other homes. 
The Waters Kecedlng. 

But the modern deluge has done its worst for Johns- 
town. The waters are rapidly subsiding, but the angry 
torrents still eddy around Ararat, and the winged mes- 
senger of peace has not yet appeared to tell the pa- 
thetic tale of those who escaped the devastation. 

It is not a hackneyed utterance to say that no pen 
can adequately depict the horrors of this twin disaster 
— holocaust and deluge. The deep emotions that well 
9 (129) 



ISO THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

from the heart of every spectator find most eloquent 
expression in silence — the silence that bespeaks rec- 
ognition of man's subserviency to the elements and 
impotence to avert catastrophe. The insignificance of 
human life is only fully realized by those who witness 
such scenes as Johnstown, Chatsworth and Ashtabula, 
and to those whose memory retains the picture of hor- 
ror the dread experience cannot fail to be a fitting les- 
son. 

A Dreary Morning. 

This morning opened dark and dreary. Great 
drops of rain fell occasionally and another storm seems 
imminent. Every one feels thankful though that the 
weather still remains cold, and that the gradual putre- 
faction of the hundreds of bodies that still line the 
streams and lie hidden under the miles of driftwood 
and debris is not unduly hastened. 

The peculiar stench of decaying human flesh is 
plainly perceptible to the senses as one ascends the 
bank of Stony Creek for a half mile along the smould 
ering ruins of the wreck, and the most skeptical now 
conceive the worst and realize that hundreds — ^aye, 
perhaps thousands — of bodies lie charred and black- 
ened beneath this great funeral pyre. Searchers wan- 
der wearily over this smoking mass, and as occasion- 
ally a sudden shout comes over the waters, the patient 
watchers on the hill realize that another ghastly dis- 
covery has been added to that long list of revelations 
that chill every heart and draw tears to the eyes of 
pessimists. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 131 

From the banks many charred remains of victims of 
flames and flood are plainly visible to the naked eye, 
as the retreating waters reluctantly give up their dead. 
Beneath almost every log or blackened beam a glisten- 
ing skull or the blanched remnants of ribs or limbs 
mark all that remains of life's hopes and dreams. 

Since ten o'clock last night the fire engines have 
been busy. Water has been constantly playing on the 
burning ruins. At times the fire seems almost extin- 
guished, but fitful flames suddenly break out afresh in 
some new quarter, and again the water and flames 
wage fierce combat. 

The Count is Still liacking. 

As yet there is no telling how many lives have been 
lost. Adjutant General Hastings, who has charge of 
everything, stated this morning that he supposed there 
were at least two thousand people under the burning 
debris, but the ortly way to find out how many lives 
were lost was to take a census of the people now liv- 
ing and subtract that from the census before the flood. 
Said he, **In my opinion there are any way from 
twelve thousand to fifteen thousand lost." 

Up to this morning people living here who lost whole 
families or parts of families hardly seemed to realize 
what a dreadful calamity had befallen them. To-day, 
however, they are beginning to understand the situa- 
tion. Agony is stamped on the faces of every one, 
and it is truly a city of mourning. 

The point of observation is on the hillside, midway 
between the woolen mills of Woodvale and Johnstown 



132 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

proper, which I reached to-day after a journey through 
the portions of the city from which the waters, reced- 
ing fast, are revealing scenes of unparalleled horror. 
From the point on the hillside referred to an excellent 
view of the site of the town can be obtained. Here it 
can be seen that from the line of the Pennsylvania 
Railroad, which winds along the base of Prospect Hill, 
to a point at which St. John's Catholic Church formerly 
stood, and from the stone bridge to Conemaugh, on 
the Conemaugh River, but twelve houses by actual 
count remain, and they are in such a condition as to be 
practically useless. To any one familiar with the 
geography of the iron city of Cambria county this will 
convey a vivid idea of a swarth averaging one-half 
mile in width and three miles in length. In all the 
length and breadth of the most peaceful and costly 
portion of Johnstown not a shingle remains except 
those adheringf to the buildinors mentioned. 
Houses Upside Down, 

But do not think for an instant that this comprehends 
in full the awfulness of the scene. What has just been 
mentioned is a large waste of territory swept as clean 
as if by a gigantic broom. In the other direction 
some few of the houses still remain, but they are up- 
side down, piled on top of each other, and in many 
ways so torn asunder that not a single one of them is 
available for any purpose whatever. It is in this dis- 
trict that the loss of life has been heartrending. Bodies 
are being dug up in every direction. 

On the main street, from which the waters have re- 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 133 

ceded sufficiently to render access and work possible, 
bodies are being exhumed. They are as thick as pota- 
toes in a field. Those in charge seem to have the 
utmost difficulty in securing the removal of bodies 
after they have been found. 

The bodies are lying among the mass of wrecked 
buildings as thick as flies. The fire in the drift above 
the bridge is under control and is being rapidly 
smothered by the Pittsburgh firemen in charge of the 
work. About seven o'clock this morning a crowd of 
Battery B boys discovered a family of five people in the 
smoking and burned ruins above the bridge. They took 
out father, mother and three children, all terribly burned 
and mutilated. The little girl had an arm torn off. 
Finding^ the Dead. 

The work of rescuing the bodies from the mud and 
debris has only fairly begun, and yet each move in 
that direction reveals more fully the horrible extent of 
the calamity. It is estimated that already i,8oo corpses 
have been found in all parts of the valley and given 
some little attention. Many of them were so mangled 
as to be beyond identification. 

A regularly organized force of men has been at 
work most of the day upon the mass of debris about 
the stone bridge. Early in the forenoon ten bodies 
were found close together. There was nothing to 
identify them, as they were burnt almost to a crisp. 
Several of them must have belonged to one house- 
hold, as they were taken from under the blackened 
timbers of a single roof. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 135 

Soon after a man, woman and child were taken from 
the ruins. The child was clasped in the arms of the wo- 
man, and the trio were evidently husband, wife and child. 

It is a most distressing sight to see the relatives of 
people supposed to be lost standing around and 
watching every body as it is pulled out, and acting 
more like maniacs than sensible people. 

As the work progressed the number of the ghastly 
finds increased. The various parties of workmen 
turned out from ten to fifteen bodies and fragments of 
bodies an hour all day long. 

Many of the corpses found had valuables still clasped 
in their hands. One woman taken from the mill this 
morning had several diamond rings and earrings, a roll 
of government bonds and some money clasped in her 
hands. She was a widow, and was very wealthy. 
Her body has been embalmed and is at the house of 

relatives. 

Suicide Brought Relief. 

From under the large brick school-house 124 bodies 
were taken last night and to-day, and in every corner 
and place the bodies are being found and buried as fast 
as possible. The necessity for speedy burial is becom- 
ing manifest, and the stench is sickening. A number 
of bodies have been found with a bullet hole in them, 
showing conclusively that in their maddening fright 
suicide was resorted to by many. 

Work was commenced during the day on the south 
side of the town. It is supposed that five hundred or 
six hundred bodies will be found in that locality. 



136 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

About twelve o'clock ten bodies were taken out 
of the wreck near the Cambria Library. On account of 
the bruised and mangled condition, some having faces 
crushed in, it was impossible to identify them. It is 
supposed they Vv^ere guests at the Hurlbert House, 
which is completely demolished. 

Eight bodies were recovered near the Methodist 
Church at eleven o'clock. It is said that fully one hun- 
dred and fifty bodies were found last evening in a sort 
of pocket below the Pennsylvania Railroad signal 
tower at Sang Hollow, where it was expected there 
would be a big find. 

Kemville One Vast Morg-ue, 

Over one thousand bodies have been taken from the 
river, dragged from the sluggish pools of mud or dug 
put of the sand about Kernville during the day. Three 
hundred of them were spread out upon the dry sand 
along the river's bank at one time this afternoon. The 
sight is one that cannot be described, and is one of 
the most distressing ever witnessed. A crowd of at 
least five hundred were gathered around, endeavoring 
to find the bodies of some friends or relatives. There 
were no coffins there at the time and the bodies had 
to be laid on the ground. However, five hundred cof- 
fins are on the way here, and the undertakers have 
sent for five hundred additional ones. Kernville from 
now on will be the place where most of the bodies will 
be found. The water has fallen so much that it is possi- 
ble to get at the bodies. However, all the bodies have 
to be dug put of the sand, and it causes no end of work. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 137 

It is thought that most of the bodies that will be 
found at Kernville are under a large pile of debris, 
about an acre in length. This is where most of the 
buildings drifted, and it is natural to suppose that the 
bodies floated with them, A rain is now falling, but 
this does not interfere with the work. Most of the 
rescuing party have been up for two days, yet they 
work with a determination that is wonderful. 
Mneveh, the City of the Dead. 

Nineveh is literally a city of the dead. The entire 
place is filled with corpses. At the depot eighty-seven 
coffins were piled up and boxed. On the streets 
coffin boxes covered the sidewalks. Improvised 
undertaking shops have embalmed and placed in their 
shrouds 198 persons. The dead were strewn about the 
town in all conceivable places where their bodies would 
be protected from the thoughtless feet of the living. 

Most of the bodies embalmed last night had been 
taken out of the river in the morning by the people at 
Nineveh, who worked incessantly night and day 
searching the river. The bodies when found were 
placed in a four-horse wagon, frequently twelve at a 
time, and driven away. Of the bodies taken out near 
Moorhead fully three-fourths are women and the rest 
children. But few men are found there. In one row 
at the planing mill to-day were eighteen children's 
bodies awaiting embalming. Next to them was a 
woman whose head had been crushed in so as to 
destroy her features. On her hand were three 
diamond rings. 



138 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Dr. Graff, of the State Board of Health, stationed 
at Nineveh, states that up till ten o'clock this morning 
they had embalmed about two hundred bodies, and by 
noon to-day would about double that number, as they 
were fishing bodies out of the river at this point at the 
rate of one every five minutes. In the driftwood and 
debris bodies are being exhumed, and an additional 
force of undertakers has been despatched to this 

place. 

In a Charnel House. 

At the public school-house the scene beggars de- 
scription. Boards have been laid from desk to desk, 
and as fast as the hands of a large body of men and 
women can put the remains in recognizable shape they 
are laid out for possible identification and removed as 
quickly as possible. Seventy-five still remain, although 
many have been taken away, and they are being 
brought in every moment. It is something horrifying 
to see one portion of the huge school taken up by 
corpses, each with a clean white sheet covering it, and 
on the other side of the room a promiscuous heap of 
bodies in all sorts of shapes and conditions, looking 
for all the world like decaying tree trunks. Among 
the number identified are two beautiful young ladies 
named respectively Mrs. Richardson, who was a 
teacher in the kindergarten school, and Miss Lottie 
Yost, whose sister I afterwards noticed at one of the 
corners near by, weeping as if her very heart was 
broken. Not a single acquaintance did she count in 
all of the great throng who passed her by, although 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 139 

many tendered sincere sympathy, which was accentu- 
ated by their own losses. 

Lost and Found. 

At the station of Johnstown proper this morning- 
the following names were added to the list of bodies 
found and identified : Charles Marshall, one of the 
engineers Cambria Company. A touching incident in 
connection with his death is that he had been married 
but a short time and his widow is heartbroken. 
Order at any Cost. 

Ex-Sheriff C. L. Dick, who was at one time Burgess 
of Johnstown, has charge of a large number of special 
deputies guarding the river at various points. He 
and a posse of his men caught seven Hungarians 
robbing dead bodies in Kernville early this morning, 
and threw them all into the river and drowned them. 
He says he has made up his mind to stand no more 
nonsense with this class of persons, and he has given 
orders to his men to drown, shoot or hang any man 
caught stealing from the dead. He said the dead 
bodies of the Huns can be found in the creek. 

Sheriff Dick, or '* Chall "as he is familiarly called, 
is a tall, slim man, and is well known in Pittsburgh, 
principally to sportsmen. He is a first-class wing 
shot, and during the past year he has won several live 
bird matches. He is slow to anger, but when forced 
into a fight his courage is unfailing. 

Shootings liooters on the "Wing. 

Dick wears corduroy breeches, a large hat, a cart- 
ridge belt, and is armed with a Winchester rifle. He 



140 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

is a crack shot and has taken charge of the deputies 
in the wrecked portion of the city. Yesterday after- 
noon he discovered two men and a woman cutting the 
finger from a dead woman to get her rings. The 
Winchester rifle cracked twice in quick succession, and 
the right arm of each man dropped, helplessly shat- 
tered by a bullet. The woman was not harmed, but 
she was so badly frightened that she will not rob 
corpses again. Some five robbers altogether were 
shot during the afternoon, and two of them were 
killed. 

The lynchings in the Johnstown district so far num- 
ber from sixteen to twenty. 

Treasure Lying Loose. 

Notwithstanding this, and the way that the town is 
most thoroughly under martial law, the pilfering still 
goes on. The wreck is a gold mine for pilferers. A 
Hungarian woman fished out a trunk down in Cambria 
City yesterday, and on breaking it open found $7,500 
in it. Another woman found a jewel box containing 
several rings and a gold watch. In one house in 
Johnstown there is $1,700 in money, but it is impossi- 
ble to get at it. 

Hanged and Riddled with Bullets. 

Quite an exciting scene took place in the borough 
of Johnstown last night. A Hungarian was discovered 
by two men in the act of blowing up the safe in the 
First National Bank Building with dynamite. A cry 
was raised, and in a few minutes a crowd had col- 
lected and the cry of "Lynch him ! " was raised, and 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 141 

in less time than it takes to tell it the man was strung 
up to a tree in what was once about the central por- 
tion of Johnstown. Not content with this the Vigilance 
Committee riddled the man's body full of bullets. He 
remained hanging to the tree for several hours, when 
some person cut him down and buried him with the 
other dead. 

The stealing by Hungarians at Cambria City and 
points along the railroad has almost ceased. The re- 
port of several lynchings and the drowning of two 
Italians while being pursued by citizens yesterday, put 
an end to the pilfering for a time. 

While Deputy Sheriff Rose was patrolling the river 
bank he found two Hungarians attempting to rob 
several bodies, and at once gave chase. The men 
started for the woods when he pulled out a pistol and 
shot twice, wounding both men badly. From the 
latest reports the men are still living, but they are in 
a critical condition. 

Cutting Off a Head for a Necklace. 

It is reported that two Hungarians found the body 
of a lady between Woodvale and Conemaugh who had 
a valuable necklace on. The devils dragged her out 
of the Vv^ater and severed her head from her body to 
get the necklace. At eleven o'clock to-day the woods 
were being scoured for the men who are supposed to 
be guilty of the crime. 

Pickets Set, Strangers Excluded. 

Up till noon to-day General Hastings has had his 
headquarters on the east side of the river, but this 



142 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

morning he came over to the burning debris, followed 
by about one hundred and twenty-five men carrying 
coffins. He started to work immediately, and has 
ordered men from Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and all 
eastern towns to do laboring work. 

The Citizen's Committee are making desperate 
efforts to preserve peace, and the Hungarians at Cam- 
bria City are being kept in their houses by men with 
clubs, who will not permit them to go outside. There 
seems considerable race prejudice at Cambria City, 
and trouble may follow, as both the English and Hun- 
garians are getting worked up to a considerable 
extent. 

The Sheriff has taken charge of Johnstown and 
armed men are this morning patrolling the city. The 
people who have been properly in the limits are per- 
mitted to enter the city if they are known, but other- 
wise it is impossible to get into the town. The reg- 
ulation seems harsh, but it is a necessity. 
Troops Sent Home. 

Battery B, of Pittsburgh, arrived in the city this 
morning under command of Lieutenant Sheppard, who 
went to the quarters of Adjutant-General- Hastings in 
the railroad watch tower. The General had just got 
up, and as the officer approached the General said : — 

" Who sent you here ? " 

*T was sent here by the Chamber of Commerce,'* 
replied the Lieutenant. 

•'Well, I want to state that there are only four 
people who can order you out, viz. : — ^The Governor, 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 143 

Adjutant-General, Major General and the Commander 
of the Second Brigade. You have committed a 
serious breach of discipline, and my advice to you is 
to get back to Pittsburgh as soon as possible, or you 
may be mustered out of service. I am surprised that 
you should attempt such an act without any authority 
whatever." 

This seemed to settle the matter, and the battery 
started back to Pittsburgh. In justice to Lieutenant 
Sheppard it might be stated that he was told that an 
order was issued by the Governor. General Hastings 
stated afterwards that the sending down of the soldiers 
was like waving a red flag, and it would only tend to 
create trouble. He said everything was quiet here, 
and it was an insult to the citizens of Johnstown to 
send soldiers here at present. 

Extortioners Held in Check, 

A riot was almost caused by the exorbitant prices 
that were charged for food. One storekeeper in Mill- 
ville borough was charging ^5 a sack for flour and 
seventy-five cents for sandwiches on Sunday. This 
caused considerable complaint and the citizens grew 
desperate. They promptly took by force all the con- 
tents of the store. As a result this morning all the 
stores have been put under charge of the police. An 
inventory was taken and the proprietor was paid the 
market price for his stock. 

A strong guard is kept at the office of the Cambria 
Iron Company. Saturday was pay day at the works, 
and $80,000 is in the safe. This became known, and 



144 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

the officials are afraid that an attempt would be made 
to rob the place. 

Sheriff Dick and a posse of his men got into a riot 
this afternoon with a crowd of Hungarians at Cam- 
bria City. The Hungarians got the better of him, and 
he called on a squad of Battery B boys, who charged 
with drawn sabres, and soon had the crowd on the 

run. 

Men Hard at Work. 

Order is slowly arising out of chaos. The survivors 
are slowly realizing what is the best course to pursue. 
The great cry is for men. Men who will work and not 
stand idly by and do nothing but gaze at the ruins. 
The following order was posted on a telegraph pole in 
Johnstown to-day : — 

" Notice — During the day men who have been idle 
have been begged to aid us in clearing the town, and 
many have not refused to work. We are now so 
organized that employment can be found for every man 
who wants to work, and men offered work who refuse 
to take the same and who are able to work must leave 
Johnstown for the present. We cannot afford to feed 
men who will not work. All work will be paid for. 
Strangers and idlers who refuse to work will be ejected 
from Johnstown. 

" By order of Citizens' Committee." 
Turning' Away the Idlers. 

Officers were stationed at every avenue and rail- 
road that enters the town. All suspicious looking 
characters are stopped. But one question is asked. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 145 

It is, " Will you work ? " If an affirmative answer is 
given a man escorts him to the employment bureau, 
where he is put to work. If not, he is turned back. 
The committee has driven one or two men out of the 
town. There is a lot of idle vao-abond neg-roes in 
Johnstown who will not work. It is likely that a com- 
mittee will escort them out of town. They have caused 
the most trouble during the past terrible days. 

It is a fact, although a disagreeable one to say, that 
not a few of the relief committees who came to this 
city, came only out of curiosity and positively refused 
to do any work, but would hang around the cars eat- 
ing food. The leaders of the committee then had to 
do all the work. They deserve much credit. 
Begging: for Help. 

An old man sat on a chair placed on a box at the 
intersection of two streets in Johnstown and begged 
for men. "For God's sake," he said, "can we not 
find men. Will not some of you men help ? Look at 
these men who have not slept for three days and are^ 
dropping with fatigue. We will pay well. For God's 
sake help us." Tears rolled down his cheeks as he 
spoke. Then he would threaten the group of idlers 
standing by and again plead with them. Every man 
it seems wants to be a policeman. 



10 



CHAPTER VII. 
Biarial of the Victims. 

Hundreds have been laid away in shallow trenches 
without forms, ceremonies or mourners. All day long 
the work of burial has been going on. There was no 
time for religious ceremonies or mourning and many 
a mangled form was coffined with no sign of mourning 
save the honest sympathy of the brave men who 
handled them. As fast as the wagons that are gather- 
ing up the corpses along the stream arrive with their 
ghastly loads they are emptied and return again to 
the banks of the merciless Conemaugh to find other 
victims among the driftwood in the underbrush, or half 
buried in the mud. The coffins are now beginning to 
arrive, and on many streets on the hillside they are 
stacked as high as the second and third story windows. 

At Kernville the people are not so fortunate. It 
would seem that every man is his own coffin maker, 
and many a man can be seen here and there claiming 
the boards of what remains of his house in which per- 
haps he has found the remains of a loved one, and 
busily patching them together with nails and hoops or 
any available thing to hold the body. 

When the corpses are found they are taken to the 
nearest dead house and are carefully washed. They 
are then laid out in rows to await identification. 

(146) 



THE JOH^FSTOWN HORROR. 147 

Cards are pinned to their breasts as soon as they are 
identified, and their names "will be marked on the 
headboards at the graves. 

Wholesale Funerals. 

There were many rude funerals in the upper part 
of the town. The coffins were conveyed to the cem- 
eteries in wagons, each one carrying two, three or 
more. 

At Long View Cemetery and at one or two other 
points long trenches have been dug to receive the 
coffins. The trenches are only about three feet deep, 
it being thought unnecessary to bury deeper, as 
almost all the bodies will be removed by friends. 
Nearly three hundred bodies were buried thus to-day. 

There will be no public ceremony, no funeral dirge, 
and but few weeping mourners. The people are too 
much impressed with the necessity of immediate and 
constant work to think of personal grief. 

The twenty-six bodies taken to the hose house in 
Minersville were buried shortly after ten o'clock yes- 
terday morning. Of the twenty-six, thirteen were 
identified. Eight women, a baby and four men were 
buried without having been identified. 

All day yesterday men were engaged in burying the 
dead. They ran short of coffins, and in order to dis- 
pose of the rapidly decomposing bodies they built rough 
boxes out of the floating lumber that was caught. In 
this way they buried temporarily over fifty bodies in the 
cemetery just above the town. 

Putrefaction of dead bodies threatens the health of 



148 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

the whole region. Now that the waters are fast shrink- 
ing back from the horrid work of their own doing and 
are uncovering thousands of putrid and ill-smelling 
corpses the fearful danger of pestilence is espied, 
stalking in the wake of more violent destruction. 

The air is already reeking with infectious filth, and 
the alarm is widespread among the desolated and over- 
wrought population. 

Cremation Best. 

Incident to this phase of the situation the chief sen- 
sation of the morning was the united remonstrance of 
the physicians against the extinguishment of the burn- 
ing wreck of the demolished town which is piled up 
against the bridge. They maintain, with a philosophy 
that to anxious searchers seems heartless, that hun- 
dreds, if not thousands, of lifeless and decaying bodies 
lie beneath this mass of burning ruins. 

"It would be better," they say, "to permit Nature's 
greatest scavenger — the flames — to pursue his work 
unmolested than to expose to further decay the horde 
of putrefying bodies that lie beneath this debris. 
There can be but one result. Days will elapse before 
the rubbish can be sufficiently removed to permit the 
recovery of these bodies, and long before that every 
corpse will be a putrid mass, giving forth those fright- 
ful emanations of decaying human flesh that in a 
crowded community like this can have but one result 
— the dreadful typhus. Every battlefield has demon- 
strated the necessity of the hasty interment of decay- 
ing bodies, and the stench that already arises is a fore- 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 149 

runner of impending danger. Burn the wreck, burn 

the wreck." 

Sorrow Rejects Safety. 

A loud cry of indignation arose from the lips of the 
vast multitude and the warnings of science were lost 
in the eager demands of those that sought the remains 
of the near and dear. The hose was again turned 
upon the hissing mass, and rapidly the flames yielded 
to the supremacy of water. 

It is almost impossible to conceive the extent of 
these smoking ruins. An area of eight or ten acres 
above the dam is covered to a depth of forty feet with 
shattered houses, borne from the resident centre of 
Johnstown. In each of these houses, it is estimated, 
there were from one to twenty or twenty-five people. 
This is accepted as data upon which to estimate the 
number that perished on this spot, and if the data be 
correct the bodies that lie beneath these ruins must 
run well up into the thousands. 

Members of the State Board of Health arrived in 
Nineveh this morning and determined to proceed at 
once to dredge the river, to clean it of the dead and 
prevent the spreading of disease. To this end they 
have wired the State Department to furnish them with 
the proper appliances. 

Drinking- Poisoned Water. 

From other points in this and connecting valleys 
the same fear of pestilence is expressed. The cities 
of Pittsburgh and Allegheny, which have a population 
of three hundred and fifty thousand and drink the 



150 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

waters of the Allegheny River, down which corpses 
and debris from Johnstown must flow unless stopped 
above, are in danger of an epidemic. The water is 
to-day thick with mud, and bodies have been found as 
far south of here as Beaver, a distance of thirty miles 
below Pittsburgh. To go this distance the bodies 
followed the Conemaugh from Johnstown to the Kis- 
kiminetas, at Blairsville, joining the Allegheny at 
Freeport, and the Ohio here, the entire distance from 
this point being about one hundred and fifty miles. 

" This is a very serious matter," said a prominent 
Pittsburgh physician who is here to me to-day, "and 
one that demands the immediate attention of the 
Board of Health officials. The flood of water that 
swept through Johnstown has cleaned out hundreds of 
cesspools. These and the barnyards' manure and the 
dirt from henneries and swamps that were swept by 
the waters have all been carried down into the Alle- 
gheny River. In addition to this there are the bodies 
of persons drowned. Some of these will, in all likeli- 
hood, be secreted among the debris and never be 
found. Hundreds of carcasses of animals of various 
kinds are also in the river. 

Typlius Dreaded. 

" These will decay, throwing out an animal poison. 
This filth and poisonous matter is being carried into 
the Allegheny, and will be pumped up into the reser- 
voir and distributed throughout the city. The result 
is a cause for serious apprehension. Take, for ex- 
ample, the town of Hazleton, Pa. There the filth 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 151 

from some outhouse was carried into the reserv'^oir and 
distributed through the town. The result was a ty- 
phoid fever epidemic and hundreds of people lost their 
lives. The water that we are drinking to-day is some- 
thing fearful to behold." 

The municipal authorities of Pittsburgh have issued 
a notice embodying the above facts. 
Sanitary Work. 

A message was received by the Relief Committee 
this morning confirming the report that for the health 
of the cities of Pittsburgh and Allegheny it is abso- 
lutely necessary that steps be taken immediately to re- 
move the bodies and drift from the river, and begging 
the committee to take early action. The contract for 
clearing the river was awarded to Captain Jutte, and 
he will start up the Allegheny this afternoon as far as 
Freeport, and then work down. His instructions are 
to clear the river thoroughly of anything that might in 
any way affect the water supply. 

Helping- Hands. 

The work of relief at the scene of the great disaster 
is going on rapidly. The Alliance (Ohio) Relief 
Committee arrived here this morning on a special 
train with five carloads of provisions. The party is 
composed of the most prominent iron and steel mer- 
chants of Alliance. 

They have just returned from a tour of the ruined 
town. They have been up to Stony Creek, a distance 
of five miles and up the Conemaugh River toward 
South Fork, a distance of two miles. 



152 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



In describing their trip, one of their number said : — 
"I tell you the half has never been told. It is irapos- 




DISTRIBUTING SUPPLIES FROM THE RELIEF TRAIN. 

sible to tell the terrible tale. I thought I had seen 
horrible sights, and I served five years in the ^^iar of 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



153 



the Rebellion, but in all my life it has never been my 
lot to look upon such ghastly sights as I have wit- 
nessed to-day. 

"While making the circuit of the ruined places we 
saw 103 bodies taken out of the debris along the bank 
of the river and Stony Creek. Of this number, we 
identified six of the victims as our friends." 




SCENE ON SOUTH CLINTON STREET. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Jolnnstovs^n and Its Indtistries. 

At this point of our narrative a sketch of Johnstown, 
where the most frightful havoc of the flood occurred, 
will interest the reader. 

The following description and history of the Cam. 
bria Iron Company's Works, at Johnstown, is taken 
from a report prepared by the State Bureau of Indus- 
trial Statistics : 

The great works operated by the Cambria Iron 
Company originated in a few widely separated char- 
coal furnaces, v/hich were built by pioneer iron 
workers in the early years of this century. It was 
chartered under the general law authorizing the incor- 
poration of iron manufacturing companies, in the year 
1852. The purpose was to operate four old-fashioned 
charcoal furnaces, located in and about Johnstown, 
some of which had been erected many years before, 
Johnstown was then a village of 1300 inhabitants. The 
Pennsylvania Railroad had only been extended thus 
far in 1852, and the early iron manufacturers rightly 
foresaw a great future for the industry at this point. 
Inmiense Furnaces. 

Coal, iron and limestone were abundant, and the 
new railroad would enable them to find ready mar- 
kets for their products. In 1853 the construction of 

(IM) 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 155 

four coke furnaces was commenced, and it wa^ two 
years before the first was completed, while some pro- 
gress was made on the other three. England was then 
shipping rails into this country under a low duty, and 
the iron industry, then in its infancy, was struggling for 
existence. 

The furnaces at Johnstown labored under greater 
difficulties in the years between 1852 and 1861 than 
can be appreciated at this late day. Had it not been 
for a few patriotic citizens in Philadelphia, who loaned 
their credit and means to the failing company, the city 
of Johnstown would possibly never have been built. 
Notwithstanding the protecting care of the Philadelphia 
merchants, the company in Johnstown was unable to 
continue in business, and suspended in 1854. Among 
its heaviest creditors in Philadelphia were Oliver Mar- 
tin and Martin, Morrell & Co. More money was sub- 
scribed, but the establishment failed again in 1855. D. 
J. Morrell, however, formed a new company with new 
credit. 

Recovery From a Great Fire. 

The year of 1856, the first after the lease was made, 
was one of great financial depression, and the follow- 
ing year was worse. To render the situation still 
more gloomy a fire broke out in June, 1857, and in 
three hours the large mill was a mass of ruins. Men 
stood in double ranks passing water from the Cone- 
maugh river, 300 yards distant, with which to fight the 
frames. So great was the energy, determination and 
financial ability of the new company that in one week 



156 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

after the fire the furnaces and rolls were once more in 
operation under a temporary structure. At this early 
stage in the manufacturing the management found it 
advisable to abandon the original and widely sep- 
arated charcoal furnaces and depend on newly con- 
structed coke furnaces. As soon as practicable after 
the fire a permanent brick mill was erected, and the 
company was once more fully equipped. When the 
war came and with it the Morrill tariff of 1861 a 
broader field was opened up. Industry and activity 
in business became general ; new life was infused into 
every enterprise. . In 1862 the lease by which the 
company had been successfully operated for seven 
years expired, and by a reorganization the present 
company was formed. 

Advent of Steel Rails. 
A new era in the manufacture of iron and steel 
was now about to dawn upon the American people. 
In this year 1870 there were 49,757 tons of steel pro- 
duced in the United States, while in 1880 the produc- 
tion was 1,058,314 tons. Open hearth steel, crucible 
steel and blister steel, prior to this, had been the prin- 
cipal products, but were manufactured by processes 
too slow and too expensive to take the place of iron. 
The durability of steel over iron, particularly for rails, 
had long been known, but its cost of production pre- 
vented its use. In 1857 one steel rail was sent to 
Derby, England, and laid down on the Midland Rail- 
road, at a place where the travel was so great that 
iron rails then in use had to be renewed som.etimes as 



MAP OF THE CONEMAUGH VALLEY. 
(157) 



158 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

often as once in three months. In June, 1873, after 
sixteen years of use, the rail, being well worn, was 
taken out. During its time 1,250,000 trains, not to 
speak of the detached engines, etc., had passed over 
it. This was the first steel rail, now called Bessemer 
rail, ever used. 

About ten years ago the Cambria Iron Company 
arranged with Dr. J. H. Gautier & Sons, of Jersey 
City, to organize a limited partnership association 
under the name of " The Gautier Steel Company, 
Limited," to manufacture, at Johnstown, wire and 
various other forms of merchant steel. Within less 
than a mile from the main works extensive mills were 
erected and the business soon grew to great propor- 
tions. In a few years so much additional capital was 
required, owing to the rapidly increasing business, 
that Dr. Gautier, then far advanced in life, wished to 
be relieved of the cares and duties incident to the 
growing trade, and the Cambria Iron Company be- 
came the purchaser of his works. "The Gautier 
Steel Company, Limited," went out of existence and 
the works are now known as the "Gautier Steel 
Department of Cambria Iron Company." 
Description of tlie "Works. 

The blast furnaces, steel works and rolling mills of 
the company are situated upon what was originally a 
river flat, where the valley of the Conemaugh ex- 
panded somewhat just below the borough of Johns- 
town, and now forming part of Millville Borough. The 
arrangement of the works has been necessarily gov- 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 159 

erned by the fact that they have gradually expanded 
from the original rolling-mill and four old style blast 
furnaces to their present character and capacity of 
which some idea may be obtained by the condensed 
description given below. 

The Johnstown furnaces, Nos. i, 2, 3 and 4, form 
one complete plant, with stacks seventy-five feet high, 
sixteen feet diameter of bosh. Steam is generated in 
forty boilers, fired by furnace gas, for eight vertical di- 
rect-acting blowing engines. Nos. 5 and 6 blast fur- 
naces form together a second plant with stacks 
seventy-five feet high, nineteen feet diameter of bosh. 
No. 5 has iron hot blast stoves and No. 6 has four 
Whitwell fire-brick hot blast stoves. The furnaces 
have together six blowing engines exactly like those 
at Nos. I, 2, 3 and 4 furnaces. The engines are sup- 
plied with steam by thirty-two cylinder boilers. 
Marvelous Machinery. 

The Bessemer plant was the sixth started in the 
United States (July, 1871). The main building is 102 
feet in width by 165 feet in length. The cupolas are 
six in number. Blast is supplied from eight Baker 
rotary pressure blowers driven by engines sixteen 
inches by twenty- four inches, at no revolutions per 
minute. The cupolas are located on either side of 
the main trough, into which they are tapped, and 
down which the melted metal is directed into a ten-ton 
ladle set on a hydraulic weighing platform, where it is 
stored until the converters are ready to receive it. 
There are two vessels of eight and a half tons 



160 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

capacity each, the products being distributed by a 
hydraulic ladle crane. The vessels are blown by 
three engines. The Bessemer works are supplied 
with steam by a battery of twenty-one tubular boilers. 
The best average, although not the very highest 
work done in the Bessemer department is 103 heats 
of eight and a half tons each for twenty-four hours. 
The best weekly record reached 1,847 ^'^^^ ^^ ingots, 
the best monthly record of 20,304 tons, and the best 
daily output, 900 tons Ingots. All grades of steel are 
made in the converters from the softest wire and 
bridge stock to spring steel. All the special stock, 
that is other than rails, is carefully analyzed by heats, 
and the physical properties are determined by a ten- 
sion test. 

Ponderous Steam-Hammers. 

The open hearth building, 120 feet in width by 155 
feet in length, contains three Pernot revolving hearth 
furnaces of fifteen tons capacity each, supplied with 
natural gas. A separate pit with a hydraulic ladle 
crane of twenty tons capacity is located In front of 
each pan. In a portion of the mill building, originally 
used as a puddle mill. Is located the bolt and nut 
works, wherein are made track bolts and machine 
bolts. This department is equipped with bolt-heading 
and nut making machines, cutting, tapping and facing 
machines, and produces about one thousand kegs of 
finished track bolts, of 200 pounds each, per month, 
besides machine bolts. Near this, also, are located 
the axle and forging shops, In the old puddle mill 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. Igl 

building. The axle shop has three steam hammers to 
forge and ten machines to cut off, centre and turn 
axles. The capacity of this shop is loo finished steel 
axles per day. All axles are toughened and annealed 
by a patented process, giving the strongest axle pos- 
sible. In the forging plant, located in the same build- 
ing, there Is an 18,000 pound Bement hammer, and a 
ten-ton traveling crane to convey forgings from the 
furnaces to the hammer. There are two furnaces for 
heating large ingots and blooms for forgings. 

A ventilating fan supplies fresh air to the mills 
through pipes located overhead, and having outlets 
near the heating furnaces. One hundred thousand 
cubic feet of fresh air per minute is distributed 
throughout the mills. The mill has in addition to its 
boilers, over the heating-furnaces, a brick and iron 
building, located near the rail mill, 205 feet long and 
45 feet wide, containing twenty-four tubular boilers, 
aggregating about 2000 horse-power. 
Tons of Barbed Wire, 

The " Gautier Steel Department " consists of a brick 
building 200 feet by 500 feet, where the wire is an- 
nealed, drawn and finished; a brick warehouse 2)1 o 
feet by 43 feet ; many shops, offices, etc. ; the barb 
wire mill, 50 feet by 256 feet, where the celebrated 
Cambria Link barb wire is made ; and the main mer- 
chant mill, 725 feet by 250 feet. These mills produce 
wire, shafting, springs, plowshare, rake and harrow 
teeth and other kinds of agricultural implement 
steel. In 1887 they produced 50,000 tons of tills 
H 



162 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

material, which was marketed mainly in the Western 
states. 

Grouped with the principal mills are the foundries, 
pattern and other shops, drafting offices, time offices, 
etc., all structures being of a firm and substantial 
character. The company operates about thirty-five 
miles of railroad tracks, employing in this service 
twenty-four locomotives, and it owns 1 500 cars. 

In the fall of 1886 natural gas was ^ introduced into 
the works 

Building up Johnsto'wn. 

Anxious to secure employment for the daughters 
and widows of the employees of the company who 
were willing to work, its management erected a 
woolen mill which now employs about 300 persons. 
Amusements were not neglected, and the people of 
Johnstown are indebted to the company for the erec- 
tion of an opera house, where dramatic entertainments 
are given. 

The company owns 700 houses, which are rented 
exclusively to employees. The handsome library 
erected by the company and presented to the town 
was stocked with nearly 70CX3 volumes. The Cambria 
Hospital is also under the control of the beneficial 
association of the works. The Cambria Clubhouse Is 
a very neat pressed brick building on the corner of 
Main and Federal streets. It was first operated in 
1 88 1, and is used exclusively fof the entertainment of 
the guests of the company and such of their employees 
as can be accommodated. The store building occu- 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 163 

pied by Wood, Morrell & Co., limited, is a four-story 
brick structure on Washington street, with three large 
store rooms on the first floor, the remainder of the 
building being used for various forms of merchandise. 

Including the surrounding boroughs, Kernville, 
Morrellville and Cambria City, all of which are built 
up solidly to Johnstown proper, the population is 
about 30,000. The Cambria Iron Company employs, 
in Johnstown, about 7500 people, which would cer- 
tainly indicate a population of not less than 20,000 
depending upon the company for a livelihood. 

A large proportion of the population of Johnstown 
are citizens of foreign birth, or their immediate de- 
scendants. Those of German, Irish, Welsh and Eng- 
lish birth or extraction predominate, with a few 
Swedes and Frenchmen. As a rule the working 
people and their families are well dressed and order- 
ly ; in this they are above the average. Most of the 
older workmen of the company, owing largely to its 
liberal policy, own their houses, and many of them 
have houses for rent 



CHAPTER IX. 
Vle-sAT of th.e Wreck:. 

Each visitor to the scene of the great disaster wit- 
nessed sights and received impressions different from 
all others. The following graphic account will thrill 
every reader : 

The most exaggerative imagination cannot too 
strongly picture the awful harvest of death, the wreck 
which accompanied that terrible deluge last Friday 
afternoon. I succeeded in crossing from the north 
side of the Little Conemaugh, a short distance above 
the point, to the sandy, muddy desert strewn with 
remnants of the buildings and personal property of 
those who know not their loss. 

It is almost an impossibility to gain access to the 
region, and it was accomplished only after much 
difficulty in crossing the swiftly running stream. 

Standing at a point in this a-bode of thousands of 
dead the work of the great flood can be more ade- 
quately measured than from any one place in the de- 
vastated region. Here I first realized the appalling loss 
of life and the terrible destruction of property. 

It was about ten o'clock when the waters of Stony 
Creek rose, overflowed their banks and what is known 
as the " flats," which includes the entire business por- 
tion of the city of Johnstown. The Little Conemaugh 

(1G4) 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 165 

was running high at the same time, and it had also 
overreached the Hmit of its banks, The water of both 
streams soon submerged the lower portion of the 
town. Up to this time there was no intimation that a 
terrible disaster was imminent. The water poured 
into the cellars of the houses in the lower districts and 
rose several inches in the streets, but as that had oc- 
curred before the people took no alarm. 

Shortly after twelve o'clock the first drowning oc- 
curred. This was not because of the deluge, it was 
simply the carelessness of the victim, who was a driver 
for the Cambria Iron Company, in stepping into a 
cellar which had been filled with water. The water 
continued to rise, and at twelve o'clock had reached 
that part of the city about a block from the point be- 
tween Stony Creek and the Little Conemaugh. 
Topography of tlie Place. 

The topography of Johnstown Is almost precisely 
like that of Pittsburgh, only in a diminished degree. 
Stony Creek comes in from the mountains on the 
northeast, and the Little Conemaugh comes in from 
the northwest, forming the Conemaugh at Johnstown, 
precisely as the Allegheny and Monongahela form the 
Ohio at Pittsburgh. On the west side of Stony Creek 
are mountains rising to a great height, and almost per- 
pendicularly from the water. On the north side of the 
Conemaugh River mountains equally as high as those 
on Stony Creek confine that river to its course. The 
hills in Johnstown start nearly a half mile from the 
business section of the city. Tliis leaves a territory 



166 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

between the two rivers of about four hundred acres. 
This was covered by costly buildings, factories and 
other important manufactories. 

When the waters of South Fork and Little Cone- 
maugh broke over their banks into that portion of the 
city known as the " flats," the business community 
turned its attention to putting endangered merchan- 
dise in a place of safety. 

First Alarm. 

In the homes of the people the women began 
gathering household articles of any kind that may 
have been in the cellar. Little attention was paid to 
the water beyond this. 

Looking from the " flats" at Johnstown toward and 
following the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks, which 
wind along the Little Conemaugh, the village of 
Woodville stands, or did stand, within sight of the 
** flats," and is really a continuation of the city at this 
point. 

The mountains on the south side of the Little Co- 
nemaugh rise here and form a narrow valley where 
Woodville was located. Next joining this, without 
any perceptible break in the houses, was the town of 
East Conemaugrh. The extreme eastern limit of East 
Conemaugh is about a mile and a half from Johns- 
town " flats." 

A Narrow Chasm. 

The valley narrows as it reaches eastward, and in a 
narrow chasm three miles from Johnstown "flats" is 
the little settlement of Mineral Point A few of the 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 167 

houses have found a place on the mountain side, out of 
harm's way, and so they still stand. 

At East Conemaugh there is located a roundhouse 
of the Pennsylvania Railroad, for the housing of loco- 
motives used to assist trains over the mountains. 
The inhabitants of this place were all employees of 
the Pennsylvania and the Gautier Steel Works, of the 
Cambria Iron Company. The inhabitants numbered 
about 1,500 people. Like East Conemaugh, 2,000 or 
2,500 people, who lived at Woodville,were employees of 
the same corporation and the woolen mills located there. 

Just below Woodville the mountains upon the south 
bank of the Conemaugh disappear and form the cofn- 
mencement of the Johnstown ''flats." The Gautier 
Steel Works of the Cambria Iron Company are 
located at this point, on the south bank. The Penn- 
sylvania Railroad traverses the opposite bank, and 
makes a long curve from this point up to East Con- 
emaugh. 

Timely Wammg to Escape. 

At what is known as the point where Stony Creek 
and the Little Conemaugh form the Conemaugh the 
mountains followed by Stony Creek take an abrupt 
turn northward, and the waters of the Little Cone- 
maugh flow into the Conemaugh at right angles with 
these mountains. 

A few hundred feet below this point the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad brido-e crosses the Conemauo;h River. 
The bridge is a massive stone structure. From the 
east end of the bridge there is a heavy fill of from 



168 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

thirty to forty feet high to Johnstown Station, a dis- 
tance of a quarter of a mile. 

Within a few feet of the station a wagon bridge 
crosses the Little Conemaugh, five hundred feet above 
the point connecting the "flats " and the country upon 
the north side of the river. 

The Cambria Iron Company's Bessemer department 
lies along the north bank of the Conemaugh, com- 
mencing at the fill, and extends for over two miles 
down the Conemaugh River upon its northern bank. 

Below the Cambria Iron Company's property is 
Millville Borough, and on the hill back of Millville 
Borough is Minersville properly — the Second ward of 
Millville Borough. 

The First ward of Millville was washed away com- 
pletely. 

While the damage from a pecuniary sense w^as large, 
the loss of life was quite small, inasmuch as the people 
had timely warning to escape. 

Below the Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge at Johns- 
town, upon the south bank of the Conemaugh, was 
the large settlement of Cambria. It had a population 
of some five thousand people. At Cambria the moun- 
tain retreats for several hundred feet, leaving a level of 
two or three hundred acres in extent. Just below the 
bridge the Conemaugh River makes a wide curve 
around this level. About eight or nine hundred houses 
stood upon this level. 

Below Cambria stands Morreliville, a place about 
equal in size to Cambria. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 169 

From this description of the location of Johnstown 
and neighboring settlements the course of the waters 
may be better understood when described. It was 
about ten minutes to three o'clock Friday afternoon 
when Mr. West, of the local office of the Pennsylva- 
nia Railroad at Johnstown, received a dispatch from 
the South Fork station, advising him to notify the in- 
habitants that the big dam in the South Fork, above the 
city, was about to break. He at once despatched 
couriers to various parts of the city, and a small sec- 
tion was notified of the impending danger. The 
messenger was answered with, 

** We will wait until we see the water." 
Others called " Chestnuts ! " and not one in fifty 
of the people who received the Avarning gave heed 
to it. 

The Debris of Three Towns. 

With the waters standing several inches deep in the 
streets of the " flats " of the city the deluge from South 
Fork Lake, burst the dam and rushed full upon Johns- 
town shortly after five o'clock on Friday afternoon the 
last day of May. 

First it swept the houses from Mineral Point down 
into East Conemaugh. When the fiood reached East 
Conemaugh the town was wiped out. This mass of 
debris was borne on to Johnstown, reinforced by the 
material of three towns. 

The Gautier steel department of the Cambria Iron 
Company was the first property attacked in the city 
proper. Huge rolls, furnaces and all the machinery 



170 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

in the great mills, costing ^6,000,000, were swept away 
in a moment, and to-day there is not the slightest evi- 
dence that the mill ever stood there. 

Swept From the Roofs. 

"Westward from this point the flood swept over the 
flats. The houses, as soon as the water reached them, 
were lifted from their foundation and hurled against 
their neighbors'. The people who at the first crash of 
their property managed to reach the roof or some 
other floating material were carried on until their frail 
support was driven against the next obstruction, when 
they went down in the crash together. 

The portion of the "flats" submerged is bounded 
by Clinton street to the Little Conemaugh River, to 
the point at Stony Creek, then back to Clinton street 
by way of Bedford. 

This region has an area of one mile square, shaped 
like a heart, and in this district there are not more than 
a dozen buildings that are not total wrecks. 

Ten per cent, of this district is so covered with 
mud, stones, rocks and other material, where costly 
buildings once stood, that it will require excavating 
from eight to twenty feet to reach the streets of the 
city. 

Remnants of the City. 

Of the houses standing there is the Methodist 
church, the club house, James McMillen's residence, 
the Morrell mansion. Dr. Lohman's house and the 
First ward school building. 

The Fourth ward school house and the Cambria 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 171 

Iron Works' general office building are the only build- 
ings standing on the north side of the river from the 
Pennsylvania Railroad bridge to the limits of tlie "flats." 

The Pennsylvania Railroad, from its station In Johns- 
town City nearly to Wilmore, a distance of seven 
miles, had a magnificent road bed of solid rock. From 
East Conemaugh to the point in Johnstown opposite 
the Gautier Steel Works, this road bed, ballast and all 
are gone. Only a few rails may occasionally be seen 
in the river below. 

Frealis of the Flood. 

When the crash came in Johnstown the houses were 
crushed as easily by the huge mass as so many build- 
ings of sand, making much the same sound as if a pen- 
cil were drawn over the slats of a shutter. Houses 
were torn from their foundations and torn to pieces 
before their occupants realized their danger. Hun- 
dreds of these people were crushed to death, while 
others were rescued by heroic men ; but the lives of 
the majority were prolonged a few minutes, when they 
met a more horrible death further down the stream. 

There is a narrow strip extending from the, club 
house to the point which, in some singular manner, 
escaped the mass of filling that was distributed on the 
flats. This strip is about 200 feep wide, 300 long and 
from 3 to 20 feet deep. What queer turn the flood 
took to thus spare this section, when the surrounding 
territory was covered with mud, stones and other ma- 
terial, is a mystery. It is, however, one of the remark- 
able turns of the flood. 



172 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

The German Catholic Church is standing, but is in 
an exceedingly shaky condition and may fall at any 
minute. This and Dr. Lohman's residence are the 
only buildings on the plot standing between Main 
street, Clinton street, Railroad street and the Little 
Conemauo-h. 

The destruction of life in this district was too awful 
to contemplate. It is estimated that not more than 
one thousand people escaped with their lives, and it is 
believed that there were fully five thousand persons 
remaininsf in the district when the flood came down. 
The flood wiped out the "flat" with the exception of 
the buildings noted. The water was twenty feet high 
here and hurled acres upon acres of houses against 
the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge which held it and 
dammed the water up until it was forty feet high. 
The mass accumulated until the weight became so 
great that it broke through the fill east of the bridge 
and the debris started out of the temporary reservoir 
with an awful rush. 

It was something: near five o'clock when the fill 
broke. The water rushed across the Cambria flats 
and swept every house away with the exceptfon of a 
portion of a brewery. There is nothing else standing 
in this district which resembles a house. 

The Johnstown Post Office Building, with all the 
office money and stamps, was carried away in the 
flood. The Postmaster himself escaped with great 
difficulty. 

The dam broke in the centre at three o'clock on 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 173 

Friday afternoon, and at four o'clock It was dry. 
That great body of water passed out in one hour. 
Park & Van Buren, who are building a new draining 
system at the lake, tried to avert the disaster by dig- 
ging a sluiceway on one side to ease the pressure on 
the dam. They had about forty men at work and did 
all they could, but without avail. The water passed 
over the dam about a foot above its top, beginning at 
about half-past two. Whatever happened in the way 
of a cloud burst took place during the night. There 
had been but little rairi up to dark. When the work- 
men woke in the morning the lake was very full and 
was rising at the rate of a foot an hour. It kept on 
rising until at two o'clock it first began breaking over 
the dam and undermining it. Men were sent three or 
four times during the day to warn people below of 
their danger. 

The Break Two Hundred Feet Wide. 
When the final break came, at three o'clock, there 
was a sound like tremendous and continued peals of 
thunder ; rocks, trees and earth were shot up into 
mid-air in great columns, and then the wave started 
down the ravine. A farmer, who escaped, said that 
the water did not come down like a wave, but jumped 
on his house and beat it to fragments in an instant. 
He was safe upon the hillside, but his wife and two 
children were killed. At the present time the lake 
looks like a cross between the crater of a volcano and 
a huge mud puddle with stumps of trees and rocks 
scattered over it. There is a small stream of muddy 



174 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

water running through the centre of the lake site. The 
dam was seventy feet high and the break is about two 
hundred feet wide, and there is but a small portion of 
the dam left on either side. No damage was done to 
any of the buildings belonging to the club. The whole 
south fork is swept, with not a tree standing. There 
are but one or two small streams showing here and 
there in the lake. A great many of the workmen 
carried off baskets full of fish caught in the mud. 
Three Millions Indemnity. 

It is reported that the Sportsman's Association, 
which owned the South Fork dam, was required to file 
an indemnity bond of $3,000,000 before their charter 
was issued. When the bill granting them these privi- 
leges was before the Legislature the representatives 
from Cambria and Blair counties vigorously opposed 
its passage and only gave way, it is said, upon con- 
dition that such an indemnifying bond was filed. This 
bond was to be filed with the prothonotary of Cambria 
county. 

Father Boyle, of Ebensburg, said the records at the 
county seat had no trace of such a bond. He found 
the record of the charter, but nothing about the bond. 
As the association is known to be composed of very 
wealthy people, there is much talk here of their being 
compelled to pay at least a part of the damages. 
The Kain Did It. 

It begins to dawn on us that the catastrophe was 
brought about not merely by the bursting of the dam 
of the old canal reservoir, but by a rainfall exceeding 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 175 

in depth and area all previously recorded phenomena 
of the kind. The whole drainage basin of the Kiski- 
minetas, and more particularly that of the Conemaugh, 
was affected. An area of probably more than 600 
square miles poured its precipitation through the nar- 
row valley in which Johnstown and associate villages 
are located. It is easy to see how, with a rainfall 
similar to that which caused the Butcher Run disas- 
ter of a few years ago, fully from thirty to fifty times 
as much water became destructive. The whole of the 
water of the lake would pass Suspension Bridge at 
Pittsburgh inside of from seven to ten minutes, while 
the gorge at Johnstown, narrowed by the activity of 
mines for generations past, was clearly insufficient to 
allow a free course for Stony Creek alone, w^hich is a 
stream heading away up in Somerset county, twenty- 
five or thirty miles south of Johnstown. That the rain- 
fall of the entire Allegheny Mountain system was un- 
precedented is clearly demonstrated to any one who 
has watched the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers 
for the past three days, and this view may serve to 
correct the impression in the public mind that would 
localize the causes of the widespread disaster to the 
bursting of any single dam. 

Danger Was Anticipated. 
Charles Parke, of Philadelphia, the civil engineer in 
the employ of the South Fork Fishing Club, in com- 
pany with George C.Wilson, ex-United States District 
Attorney, and several other members of the club, 
reached Johnstown and brought with them the first 



17(1 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

batch of authoritative news from Conemaugh Lake, 
the bursting of which, it is. universally conceded, 
caused the disaster. 

Mr. Parke was at first averse to talking, and seemed 
more interested in informing his friends in the Quaker 
City that he was still in the land of the living. On 
being pressed he denied most emphatically that the 
dam had burst, and proceeded to explain that he first 
commenced to anticipate danger on Friday morning, 
when the water in the lake commenced to rise at a 
rapid rate. Immediately he turned his force of twenty- 
five Italians to opening an extra waste sluiceway in 
addition to the one thac had always answered before. 

The five members of the club on hand all worked 
like horses, but their efforts were in vain, and at three 
o'clock the supporting wall gave way ^vith a sound 
that seemed like distant thunder and the work was 
done. 

The Governor's Appeal. 

Harrisburg, Pa., June 3, 1886. — The Governor 
issued the following : — 

" Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, "l 

"Executive Chamber, > 

"Harrisburg, Pa., June 3, 1889. J 

"To THE People of the United States: — 

"The Executive of the Commonwealth of Pennsyl- 
vania has refrained hitherto from making any appeal 
to the people for their benefactions, in order that he 
might receive definite and reliable information from 
the centres of disaster during the late floods, which 



THE JOHNSTOAN HORROR. 177 

have been unprecedented in the history of the State 
or nation. Communication by wire has been estab- 
lished with Johnstown . to-day. The civil authorities 
are in control, the Adjutant General of the State co- 
operating with them ; order has been restored and is 
likely to continue. Newspaper reports as to the loss 
of life and property have not been exaggerated. 

"The valley of the Conemaugh, which is peculiar, 
has been swept from one end to the other as with the 
besom of destruction. It contained a population of 
forty thousand to fifty thousand people, living for the 
most part along the banks of a small river confined 
within narrow limits. The most conservative esti- 
mates place the loss of life at 5,000 human beings^ 
and of property at twenty-five millions. [The reader 
will understand that this and previous estimates were 
the first and were far too small.] Whole towns ha:Yfs 
been utterly destroyed. Not a vestige remains. la 
the more substantial towns the better buildings^ to a 
certain extent, remain, but in a damaged condition. 
Those who are least able to bear it have suffered 
the loss of everything. 

** The most pressing needs, so far as food is con- 
cerned, have been supplied. Shoes and clothing of 
all sorts for men, women and children are greatly 
needed. Money is also urgently required to remove 
the debris, bury the dead, and care temporarily for 
the widows and orphans and for the homeless gener- 
ally. Other localities have suffered to some extent ia 
the same way, but not in the same degree. 

12 



178 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

" Late advices seem to indicate that there is great 
loss of life and destruction of property along- the west 
branch of the Susquehanna and in localities from 
which we can get no definite information. What does 
come, however, is of the most appalling character, 
and it is expected that the details will add new horrors 
to the situation. 

Generous Responses. 

" The responses from within and without the State 
have been most generous and cheering. North and 
South, East and West, from the United States and 
from England, there comes the same hearty, generous 
response of sympathy and help. The President, Gov- 
ernors of States, Mayors of cities, and individuals and 
communities, private and municipal corporations, seem 
to vie with each other in their expressions of sympathy 
and in their contributions of substantial aid. But, 
gratifying as these responses are, there is no danger 
of their exceeding the necessities of the situation. 
Organized Distribution. 

" A careful organization has been made upon the 
ground for the distribution of whatever assistance is 
furnished. The Adjutant General of the State is there 
as the representative of the State authorities and giv- 
ing personal attention, in connection with the Chief 
Burgess of Johnstown and a committee of relief to the 
distribution of the help which is furnished. 

^*A large force will be employed at once to remove 
the debris and bury the dead, so as to avoid disease 
and epidemic. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 179 

"The people of the Commonwealth and others 
whose unselfish generosity Is hereby heartily apprecia- 
ted and acknowledged may be assured that their con- 
tributions will be made to bring their benefactions to 
the immediate and direct relief of those for whose 
benefit they are intended. 

"James A. Beaver. 

" By the Governor, Charles W. Stone, Secretary 
of the Commonwealth." 

Alive to the Sitnation. 

The Masonic Relief Committee which went from 
Pittsburgh to Johnstown telegraphed President Har- 
rison, urging the appointment of a national com- 
mission to take charge of sanitary affairs at the scene 
of the disaster. It was urged that the presence of so 
many decaying corpses would breed a pestilence 
there, besides polluting the water of the streams 
affecting all the country between Pittsburgh and New 
Orleans. 

The disasters in Pennsylvania were the subject of a 
conference at the White House between the President, 
General Noble, the Secretary of the Interior, and Sur- 
geon General Hamilton. The particular topic which 
engaged their attention was the possibility of the pol- 
lution of the water-supply of towns along the Cone- 
maugh river by the many dead bodies floating down 
the stream. 

The President was desirous that this new source of 
danger should be cut off, if any measures which could 
be taken by the government could accomplish :^t It 



180 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

was suggested that the decomposition of so much 
human flesh and the settling of the decomposing frag- 
ments into the bed of the stream might make the 
water so foul as to l;)reed disease and scatter death in 
a new form among the surviving dwellers in the 

valley. 

Not Afraid of a Plagrue. 

Surgeon General Hamilton expressed the opinion 
that the danger was not so great as might be supposed. 
There would be no pollution from those bodies taken 
from the river before decomposition set in, and the 
force of the freshet would tend to clear the river bed 
of any impurities in it rather than make new deposits. 
The argument which had the most weight, however, 
1»rith the President was the efficiency of the local 
a^ithorities. Pennsylvania has a State Board of Health 
and is a State with ample means at her disposal, both 
in money and men, and if there is any danger of this 
sort her local officials were able to deal with it. This 
was practically the decision of the conference. The 
gentlemen will meet again, if necessary, and stand 
ready to render every assistance which the situation 
qalls for, but they will leave the control of the matter 
with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania until it ap- 
pears that she is unable to cope with it. 

Governor Beayer to. the President. 

The following telegram was received by President 
Harrison from Governor Beaver, who made his way 
from York to Harrisburg : — 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 181 

"Harrisburg, Pa., June 3, 1889. 
•'To the President, Washington : — 

"The Sheriff of Cambria county says everything is 
quiet and that he can control the situation without the 
aid of troops. The people are fairly housed and good 
order prevails. The supply of food so far is equal to 
the demand, but supplies of food and clothing are still 
greatly needed. 

"Conservative estimates place the loss of life at 
from five thousand to ten thousand, and loss of prop- 
erty at from 5^25,000,000 to ^40,000,000. The people 
are at work heroically, and will have a large force tO" 
morrow clearing away the debris. 

"The sympathies of the world are freely expressed. 
One telegram from England gives ^1,000. I will is- 
sue a general appeal to the public to-night. Help 
comes from all quarters. Its universality greatly en- 
courages our people. I will communicate with you 
promptly if anything unusual occurs. 

"James A. Beaver." 



CHAPTER X. 
Ttirilling Exiperienoes. 

Johnstown, Pa., June 3, 1889. — Innumerable tales 
of thrilling individual experiences, each one more hor- 
rible than the others, are told. 

Frank McDonald, a conductor on the Somerset 
branch of the Baltimore and Ohio, was at the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad depot in this place when the flood 
came. He says that when he first saw the flood it was 
thirty feet high and gradually rose to at least forty feet. 

** There is no doubt that the South Fork Dam was 
the cause of the disaster," said Mr. McDonald. " Fif- 
teen minutes before the flood came Decker, the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad agent read me a telegram that he 
had just received saying that the South Fork Dam 
had broken. As soon as he heard this the people in 
station, numbering six hundred, made a rush for a hill. 
I certainly think I saw one thousand bodies go over 
the bridge. The first house that came down struck 
the bridge and at once took fire, and as fast as the 
others came down they were consumed. 

Saw a Thousand Persons Burn. 

** I believe I am safe in saying that I saw one thous- 
and bodies burn. It reminded me of a lot of flies on 
fly paper struggling to get away, with no hope and no 
chance to save them. 

C182) 




(183) 



184 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

** I have no idea that had the bridge been blown up 
the loss of life would have been any less. They would 
have floated a little further with the same certain 
death. Then, again, it was impossible for any one to 
have reached the bridge in order to blow it out, for 
the waters came so fast that no one could have done it. 

" I saw fifteen to eighteen bodies go over the bridge 
at the same time. 

*T offered a man ^20 to row me across the river, 
^but could get no one to go, and finally had to build a 
boat and get across that way." 

It required some exercise of acrobatic agility to get 
into or out of the town. A slide, a series of frightful 
tosses from side to side, a run and you had crossed 
the narrow rope bridge which spanned the chasm dug 
by the waters between the stone bridge and Johns- 
town. Crossing the bridge was an exciting task. Yet 
many women accomplished it rather than remain in 
Johnstown. The bridge pitched like a ship in a storm. 
Witliin two inches of your feet rushed the muddy 
waters of the Conemaugh. There were no ropes to 
guide one and creeping was more convenient than 
walking. 

One had to cross the Conemaugh at a second point 
in order to reach Johnstown proper. This was accom- 
plished by a skiff ferry. The ferryman clung to a 
rope and pulled the load over. 

Confusion Worse Confounded. 

It is impossible to describe the appearance of Main 
street. Whole houses have been swept down this one 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 185 

Street and become lodged. The wreck is piled as high 
as the second story windows. The reporter could 
step from the wreck into the auditorium of the Opera 
House. The ruins consists of parts of houses, trees, 
saw logs, reels from the wire factory. Many houses 
have their side walls and roofs torn up, and you can 
walk directly into what had been second story bed- 
rooms, or go in by way of the top. Further up town a 
raft of logs lodged in the street and did great damage. 

The best way to get an idea of the wreck is to take 
a number of children's blocks, place them closely to- 
gether and draw your hand through them. 

At the commencement of the wreckage, which Is at 
the opening of the valley of the Conemaugh, one can 
look up the valley for miles and not see a house. 
Nothing stands but an old woolen mill. 
As Seen by an Eye-Witness. 

Charles Luther is the name of the boy who stood 
on an adjacent elevation and saw the whole flood. He 
said he heard a grinding noise far up the valley, and 
looking up he could see a dark line moving slowly to- 
ward him. He saw that it was made up of houses. On 
they came like the hand of a giant clearing off his tables. 
High in the air would be tossed a log or beam, 
which fell back with a crash. Down the valley it 
moved sedately and across the little mountain city. 
For ten minutes nothing but moving houses were seen, 
and then the waters came with a roar and a rush. 
This lasted for two hours, and then it began to flow 
more steadily. 



186 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

The pillaging of the houses in Johnstown is some- 
thing awful to contemplate and describe. It makes 
one feel almost ashamed to call himself a man and 
know that others who bear the same name have con- 
verted themselves into human vultures, preying on the 
dead. Men are carrying shotguns and revolvers, and 
woe betide the stranger who looks even suspiciously 
at any article. Goods of great value were being sold 
in town to-day for a drink of whiskey. 

A supply store has been established in the Fourth 
ward in Johnstown. A line of men, women and chil- 
dren, extending for a square, waited patiently to have 
their wants supplied. 

An Improvised Morg-iie. 

The school house has been converted into a morgue, 
and the dead are being buried from this place. A 
hospital has been opened near by and is full of pa- 
tients. One of the victims was removed from a piece 
of wreckage in which he had been imprisoned 
three days. His leg was broken and his face badly 
bruised. He was delirious when rescued. 

In some places it is said the railroad tracks were 
scooped out to a depth of twenty feet. A train of 
cars, all loaded, were run on the Conemaugh bridge. 
They, with the bridge, now lie in the wreckage at this 
point. The Pennsylvania Railroad loses thirty-five 
engines and many cars. 

Fire Still Bagiugr* 

The cling-cling-clang of the engines has a homelike 
sound. The fire has spread steadily all day and the 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



187 



upper part of the drift is burning to-night. The fire 
engine is stationed on the river bank and a line of 
hose laid far up the track to the coal mine. The 
flames to-night are higher than ever before, and by its 




FIREMEN ON DUTY AT THE BRIDGE. 

pght long lines of the curious can be seen along the 
banks. 

The natural gas has been shut off, owing to the 
many leaks in Johnstown. No fire is allowed in the 



188 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

city. The walls of many houses are falling. Their 
crash can be heard across the river, where the newspa- 
per men are located. In the walk through the town 
to-day the word "danger," could be noticed, painted 
by the rescuers on the walls. 

Cremated. 

One of the Catholic churches in the town was 
burned on Saturday. A house drifted down against it 
and set it on fire. A funeral was being held at the 
church at the time of the flood. The congregation de- 
serted the church and the body was burned with the 
building. Two large trees passed entirely through a 
brick Catholic church located near the centre of the 
town. The building still stands, but is a total wreck. 

Colonel Norman M. Smith, of Pittsburgh, while re- 
turning from Johnstown after a visit to Adjutant Gen- 
eral Hastings, was knocked from the temporary bridge 
into the river and carried down stream a couple of 
hundred yards before he was able to swim ashore. He 

was not hurt. 

A liucky escape. 

O. J. Palmer, travelling salesman for a Pittsburgh 
meat house, was on the ill-fated day express, one car 
of which was washed away. He narrowly escaped 
drowning, and tells a horrible tale of his experience 
on that occasion. The engineer, the fireman and 
himself, when they saw the flood coming, got upon the 
top of the car, and when the coach was carried away 
they caught the driftwood, and fortunately it was car- 
ried near the shore and they escaped to the hills. Mr. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 189 

Palmer walked a distance of twenty miles around the 

flooded district to a nearby railroad station on this 

side. 

Freaks of the Disaster. 

A novel scene was witnessed yesterday near Johns- 
town borough. Some women who managed to 
escape from the town proper had to wear men's 
clothes, as their own had been torn off by the flood. 

The force of the flood can be estimated by the fact 
that it carried three cars a mile and a half and the 
tender of an engine weighing twelve tons was carried 
fourteen miles down the river. A team of horses 
which was standing on Main street just before the 
flood was found a mile and a quarter below the town 
yesterday. 

The damage to the Cambria Iron Works was not so 
great as at first reported. The ends of the blooming 
mill and open hearth furnace buildings were crushed 
in by the force of the flood. The water rushed 
through the mill and tore a great pile of machinery 
from its fastenings and caused other damage. The 
Bessemer steel mill is almost a ruin. The rolling and 
v/ire mills and die six blast furnaces were not much 
damaged. This morning the company put a large 
force of men at work and are making strenuous 
efforts to have at least a portion of the plant in oper- 
ation within a few weeks. This has given encourage- 
ment to the stricken people of Johnstown, and they 
now seem to have some hope, although so many of 
their loved ones have met their death. The mill yard, 



190 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

with its numerous railroad tracks, is nothing but a 
waste. Large piles of pig metal were scattered in 
every direction. All the loose debris is being gath- 
ered into heaps and burned. 

Hurled to a Place of Safety. 

A pitiful sight was that of an old, gray haired man 
named Norn. He was walking around among the 
mass of debris, looking for his family. He had just 
sat down to eat his supper when the crash came, and 
the whole family, consisting of wife and eight children, 
were buried beneath the collapsed house. He was 
carried down the river to the railroad bridge on a 
plank. Just at the bridge a cross-tie struck him with 
such force that he was shot clear upon the pier and 
was safe. But he is a mass of bruises and cuts from 
head to foot. He refused to go to the hospital until 
he found the bodies of his loved ones. 
Heroism in Briglit Belief. 

A Paul Revere lies somewhere among the deald. 
Who he is is now known, and his ride will be famous 
in history. Mounted on a grand, big bay horse, he 
came riding down the pike which passes through 
Conemaugh to Johnstown, like some angel of wrath of 
old, shouting his warning : " Run for your lives to 
the hi^s ! Run to the hills 1 " 

A Cloud of Buin. 

The people crowded out of their houses along the 
thickly settled streets awestruck and wondering. 
No one knew the man, and some thought he was a 
maniac and laughed. On and on, at a deadly pace, he 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 191 

rode, and shrilly rang out his awful cry. In a few mo- 
ments, however, there came a cloud of ruin down the 
broad streets, down the narrow alleys, grinding, twist- 
ing, hurling, overturning, crashing — annihilating the 
weak and the strong. It was the charge of the flood, 
wearing its coronet of ruin and devastation, which 
grew at every instant of its progress. Forty feet high, 
some say, thirty according to others, was this sea, and 
it travelled with a swiftness like that which lay in the 
heels of Mercury. 

On and on raced the rider, on and on rushed the 
wave. Dozens of people took heed of the warning 
and ran up to the hills. 

Poor, faithful rider, it was an unequal contest. Just 
as he turned to cross the railroad bridge the mighty 
wall fell upon him, and horse, rider and bridge all went 
out into chaos together. 

A few feet further on several cars of the Pennsylva- 
nia Railroad train from Pittsburgh were caught up and 
hurried into the caldron, and the heart of the town 
was reached. 

The hero had turned neither to right nor left for 
himself, but rode on to death for his townsmen. He 
was overwhelmed by the current at the bridge and 
drowned. A party of searchers found the body of this 
man and his horse. He was still in the saddle. In a 
short time the man was identified as Daniel Periton, 
son of a merchant of Johnstown, a young man of re- 
markable courage. He is no longer the unknown 
hero, for the name of Daniel Periton will live in fame 



192 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

as long as the history of this calamity is remembered 
by the people of this country. 

A Devoted Operator. 

Mrs. Ogle, the manager of the Western Union, who 
died at her post, will go down in history as a heroine 
of the highest order. Notwithstanding the repeated 
notifications which she received to get out of reach of 
the approaching danger, she stood by the instruments 
with unflinching loyalty and undaunted courage, send- 
ing words of warning to those in danger in the valley 
below. When every station in the path of the coming 
torrent had been warned she wired her companion at 
South Fork, "This is my last message," and as such 
it shall always be remembered as her last words on 
earth, for at that very moment the torrent engulfed 
her and bore her from her post on earth to her post 
of honor in the great beyond. 

Another Hero. 

A telegraph operator at the railroad station above 
Mineral Point, which is just in the gorge a short dis- 
tance below the dam, and the last telegraph station 
above Conemaugh, had seen the waters rising, and 
had heard of the first break in the dam. Two hours 
before the final break came he sent a message to his 
wife at Mineral Point to prepare for the flood. It 
read: "Dress the three children in their best Sunday 
clothes. Gather together what valuables you can 
easily carry and leave the house. Go to the stable on 
the hillside. Stay there until the water reaches it; 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 193 

then run to the mountain. The dam Is breaking. The 
flood is coming. Lose no time." 

His wife showed the messasfe to her friends, but 
they laughed at her. They even persuaded her to not 
heed her husband's command. The wife went home 
and about her work. Meanwhile the telegraph opera- 
tor was busy with his ticker. Down to Conemaugh 
he wired the warning. He also sent It on to Johns- 
town, then he ticked on, giving each minute bulletins 
of the break. As the water came down he sent 
message after message, telling its progress. Finally 
came the flood. He saw houses and bodies swept 
past him. His last message was : "The water Is all 
around me ; I cannot stay longer, and, for God's sake, 
all fly." Then he jumped out of his tower window 
and ran up the mountain just in time to save himself. 
A whole town came past as he turned and looked. 
Great masses of houses plunged up. He saw people 
on roofs yelling and crying, and then saw collisions of 
houses, which caused the buildings to crush and 
crumble like paper. 

Racing' ivitli Death. 

All the time he felt that his family were safe. But 
it was not so with them. When the roar of approach- 
ing water came the people of Mineral Point thought 
of their warning. The wife gathered her children and 
started to run. As she went she forgot her husband's 
advice to go to the mountain and fled down the street 
to the lowlands. Suddenly she remembered she had 
left the key of her home in the door. She took the 
13 



194 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

children and ran back. As she neared the house the 
water came and forced them up between the two 
houses. The only outlet was toward the mountain, 
and she ran that way with her children. The water 
chased her, but she and the children manajjed to 
clamber up far enough to escape. Thus It was that 
an accident saved their lives. Only three houses and 
a school-house were saved at Mineral Point. 
A Dang-erous Venture. 

One of the most thrilllnof incidents of the disaster 
was the performance of A. J. Leonard, whose family 
reside in Morrellville. He was at work, and hearing- 
that his house had been swept away determined at all 
hazards to ascertain the fate of his family. The bridges 
ihaving been carried away he constructed a temporary 
raft, and clinging to it as close as a cat to the side of 
IS. fence, he pushed his frail craft out Into the raging 
torrent and started on a chase which, to all vv'ho were 
watching, seemed to mean an embrace in death. 

Heedless of cries "For God's sake go back, you 
will be drowned." " Don't attempt it," he persevered. 
As the raft struck the current he pulled off his coat 
;and in his shirt sleeves braved the stream. Down 
plunged the boards and down went Leonard, but as 
it arose he was seen still clinging. A mighty shout 
arose from the throats of the hundreds on the banks, 
who were now deeply Interested, earnestly hoping he 
would successfully ford the stream. 

Down again went his bark, but nothing. It seemed, 
could shake Leonard off. The craft shot up In the air 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 195 

apparently ten or twelve feet, and Leonard stuck to it 
tenaciously. Slowly but surely he worked his boat to 
the other side of the stream, and after what seemed an 
awful suspense he finally landed amid ringing cheers 
of men, women and children. 

The last seen of him he was making his way down 
a mountain road in the direction of the spot where his 
house had lately stood. His family consisted of his 
wife and three children. 

A Thrilling- Escape. 

Henry D. Thomas, a well-known dry goods mer- 
chant, tells the following story: "I was caught right 
between a plank and a stone wall and was held in that 
position for a long time. The water came rushing 
down and forced the plank against my chest. I felt 
as if it were going through me, when suddenly the 
plank gave way, and I fell into the water. I grabbed 
the plank quickly and in some unaccountable way 
managed to get the . forepart of my body on it, and in 
that way I was carried down the stream. All around 
me were people struggling and drowning, while bodies 
floated like corks on the water. Some were crying for 
help, others were praying aloud for mercy and a few 
were singing as if to keep up their courage. 

A large raft which went by bore a whole family, and 
they were singing, " Nearer my God to Thee." In the 
midst of their song the raft struck a large tree and 
went to splinters. There were one or two wild cries 
and then silence. The horror of that time is with me 
day and night. It would have driven a weak-mlqlfed 
person crazy. 



196 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

"The true condition of things that night can never 
be adequately described in words. The water came 
down through a narrow gorge, which in places was 
hardly two hundred feet wide. The broken dam was 
at an elevation of about five hundred feet above Johns- 
town. The railroad bridge across the Conemaugh 
River is at the lower side of Johnstown, and the river 
is joined there by another mountain stream from the 
northeast. It was here that the debris collected and 
caught fire, and I doubt if it will ever be known how 
many perished there. The water came down with the 
speed of a locomotive. The people there are abso- 
lutely paralyzed — so much so that they speak of their 
losses in a most indifferent way. I heard two men in 
conversation. One said: 'Well, I lost a wife and 
three children.' 'That's nothing,' said the other; *I 
lost a wife and six children.' 

The Sudden Break. 

A man named Maguire was met on his way from 
South Fork to Johnstown. He said he was standing 
on the edofe of the lake when the walls burst. The 
waters were rising all day and were on a level with a 
pile of dirt which he said was above the walls of the 
dam. All of a sudden it burst with a report like a 
cannon and the water started down the mountain side, 
sweeping before it the trees as if they were chips. 
Bowlders were rolled down as if they were marbles. 
The roar was deafening. The lake was emptied in 
aOfchour 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 197 

At the time there were about forty men at work up 
there, building a new draining system at the lake for 
Messrs. Parke and Van Buren. They did all they 
could to try and avert the disaster by digging a sluice- 
way on one side to ease the pressure on the dam, but 
their efforts were fruitless. 

" It was about half-past two o'clock when the water 
reached the top of the dam. At first it was just a 
narrow white stream trickling down the face of the 
dam, soon its proportions began to grow with alarm- 
ing rapidity, and in an extremely short space of time 
a volume of water a foot in thickness was passing over 
the top of the dam. 

" There had been little rain up to dark. Whatever 
happened in the way of a cloud burst took place dur- 
ing the night. When the workmen woke in the 
morning the lake was very full and was rising at the 
rate of a foot an hour. 

^ "When at two o'clock the water began to flow over 
the dam, the work of undermining began. Men were 
sent three or four times during the day 

To Warn the People 
below of their danger. At three o'clock there was a 
sound like tremendous and continued peals of thunder. 
The earth seemed to shake and vibrate beneath our 
feet. 

" There was a rush of wind, the trees swayed to and 
fro, the air was full of fine spray or mist : then looking 
down just in front of the dam we saw trees, rocks and 
earth shot up into mid-air in great column^^It 



198 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

seemed as though some great unseen force was at 
work wantonly destroying everything ; then the great 
wave, foaming, boihng and hissing, dashing clouds of 
spray hundreds of feet in height as it came against 
some obstruction in the way of its mad rush, clearing 
everything away before it, started on its terrible 
death-dealing mission down the fatal valley." 
Eng-ineer Henry's Awful Race. 

Engineer Henry, of the second section of the ex- 
press train, No. 8, which was caught at Conemaugh, 
tells a thrilling story. His train was caught in the 
midst of the wave and were the only cars that were 
not destroyed. " It was an awful sight," he said. "I 
have often seen pictures of flood scenes, and I thought 
they were exaggerations, but what I witnessed last 
Friday changes my former belief. To see that im- 
mense volume of water, fully fifty feet high, rushing 
madly down the valley, sweeping everything before it, 
was a thrilling sight. It is engraved indelibly on my 
memory. Even now I can see that mad torrent 
carrying death and destruction before it. 

"The second section of No. 8, on which I was, was 
due at Johnstown about 10.15 in the morning. We 
arrived there safely, and were told to follow the first 
section. When we arrived at Conemaugh the first sec- 
tion and the mail were there. Washouts further up 
the mountain prevented our going, so we could do 
nothing but sit around and discuss the situation. The 
creek at Conemaugh was swollen high, almost over- 
flowing. The heavens were pouring rain, but this did 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 199 

not prevent nearly all the inhabitants of the town from 
gathering along its banks. They watched 
The Waters Go Dashing- 

by and wondered whether the creek could get much 
hiofher. But a few inches more and it would overflow 
its banks. There seemed to be a feeling of uneasiness 
among the people. They seemed to fear that some- 
thing awful was going to happen. Their suspicions 
were strengthened by the fact that warning had come 
down the valley for the people to be on the lookout. 
The rains had swelled everything to the bursting 
point. The day passed slowly, however. 

Noon came and went, and still nothing happened. 
We could not proceed, nor could we go back, as the 
tracks about a mile below Conemaugh had been 
washed away, so there was nothing for us to do but to 
wait and see what w^ould come next. 

Some time after 3 o'clock Friday afternoon I went 
into the train despatcher's office to learn the latest 
news. I had not been there lono- when I heard a 
fierce whistling from an engine away up the mountain. 
Rushing out I found dozens of men standing around. 
Fear had blanched every cheek. The loud and con- 
tinued whistling had made every one feel that some- 
thing serious was going to happen. In a few mo- 
ments I could hear a train rattling down the mountain. 
About five hundred yards above Conemaugh the 
tracks make a slight curve and we could not see be- 
yond this. The suspense was something awful. We 
did not know what was coming, but no one could get 



200 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

rid of the thoup-Iit that somethinof was wronof at the 
dam. 

"Our suspense was not very long, however. 
Nearer and nearer the train came, the thundering^ 
sound still accompanying it. There seemed to be 
something behind the tram, as there was a dull, rumb- 
linof sound which I knew did not come from the train. 
Nearer and nearer it came ; a moment more and it 
would reach the curve. The next instant there burst 
upon our eyes a sight that made every heart stand 
still. Rushing around the curve, snorting and tear- 
ing, came an engine and several gravel cars. The 
train appeared to be putting forth every effort to go 
faster. Nearer it came, belching forth smoke and 
whistling long and loud. But 

The Most Terrible Sight 
was to follow. Twenty feet behind came surging 
along a mad rush of water fully fifty feet high. Like 
the train, it seemed to be putting forth every effort to 
push along faster. Such an awful race we never be- 
fore witnessed. For an instant the people seemed 
paralyzed with horror. They knew not what to do, 
but in a moment they realized that a second's delay 
meant death to them. With one accord they rushed 
to the high lands a few hundred feet away. Most of 
them succeeded in reaching that place and were safe. 

"I thought of the passengers in my train. The 
second section of No. 8 had three sleepers. In these" 
three cars were about thirty people, who rushed 
through the train crying to the others ' Save your- 




(201) 



202 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

sel „s ! ' Then came a scene of the wildest confusion. 
Ladies and children shrieked and the men seemed 
terror-stricken. I succeeded in helping some ladies 
and children off the train and up to the liighlands. 
Running back, I caught up two children and ran for 
my life to a higher place. Thank God, I was quicker 
than the flood ! I deposited my load in safety on the 
high land just as it swept past us. 

" For nearly an hour we stood watching the mad 
flood go rushing by. The water was full of debris. 
When the flood caught Conemaugh it dashed against 
the little town with a mighty crash. The water did 
not lift the houses up and carry them off, but crushed 
them one against the other and broke them up like so 
many egg shells. Before the flood came there was a 
pretty little town. When the waters passed on there 
was nothing but 

Few Broken Boards 
to mark the central portion of the city. It was swept 
as clean as a newly brushed floor. When the flood 
passed onward down the valley I went over to my 
train. It had been moved back about twenty yards, 
but it was not damaged. About fifty persons had re- 
mained in the train and they were safe. Of the three 
trains ours was the luckiest. The engines of both the 
others had been swept off the track and one or two 
cars in each train had met the same fate. 

What saved our train was the fact that just at the 
curve which I mentioned the valley spread out. The 
valley is six or seven hundred yards broad where our 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 203 

train was standing. This, of course, let the fl "~d&i 
pass out. It was only twenty feet high when it strucl< 
our train, which was about in the middle of the valley. 

This fact, together with the elevation of the track, 
was all that saved us. We stayed that night in the 
houses in Conemaugh that had not been destroyed. 
The next morning I started down the valley and by 4 
o'clock in the afternoon had reached Conemaugh fur- 
nace, eight miles west of Johnstown. Then I got a 
team and came home. 

In my tramp down the valley I saw some awful 
sights. On the tree branches hung shreds of clothing 
torn from the unfortunates as they were whirled along 
in the terrible rush of the torrent. Dead bodies were 
lying by scores along the banks of the creeks. One 
woman I helped drag from the mud had tightly 
clutched in her hand a paper. We tore it out of her 
hand and found it to be a badly water-soaked photo- 
graph. It was probably a picture of the drowned 
woman." 

Over the Bridg-e. 

Frank McDonald, a railroad conductor, says: 'T 
certainly think I saw i,ocxd bodies go over the bridge. 
The first house that came down struck the bridge and 
at once took fire, and as fast as they came down they 
were consumed. I believe I am safe in saying I saw 
1,000 bodies burn. It reminded me of a lot of flies on 
fly-paper struggling to get away, with no hope and no 
chance to save them. I have no idea that had the 
bridge been blown up the loss of life would have been 



204 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

any less. They woud have floated a little further 
with the same certain death. Then, again, it was 
impossible for any one to have reached the bridge in 
order to blow it up, for the waters came so fast that 
no one could have done It. I saw fifteen to eighteen 
bodies go over the bridge. At the same time I offered 
a man twenty dollars to row me across the river, but 
could get no one to go, and I finally had to build a 
boat and get across that way." 

Nothing seems to have withstood the merciless 
sweep of the mighty on-rush of pent-up Conemaugh. 
As for the houses of the town a thousand of them lie 
piled up in a smouldering mass to the right of Cone- 
maucrh bridofe. 

At the present moment, away down in its terrible 
depths, this mass of torn and twisted timbers and dead 
humanity Is slowly burning, and the light curling- 
smoke that rises as high almost as the mountain, and 
the sickening smell that comes from the centre of this 
fearful funeral pile tell that the unseen fire is feeding 
on other fuel than the rafters and roofs that once shel- 
tered the population of Johnstown. 
A Gliastly Scene. 

The mind is filled with horror at the supreme deso- 
lation that pervades the whole scene. It is small 
wonder that the pen cannot in the hands of the most 
skillful even pretend to convey one-hundredth part of 
what is seen and heard every hour In the day In this 
fearful place. At the present moment firemen and 
others are out on that ghastly aggregation of wood- 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 205 

work and human kind jammed against the unyielding 
mass of arched masonry. 

Round them curls the white smoke from the smould- 
ering interior of the heaped up houses of Johnstown. 
Every now and then the gleam of an axe and a group 
of stooping forms tell that another ghastly find has 
been made, and a whisper goes round among the 
hundreds of watchers that other bodies are being 
brought to ViQ-ht. 

How many hundreds or thousands there are who 
found death by fire at this awful spot will never be 
known, and the people are already giving up hopes of 
ever reaching the knowledge of how their loved and 
lost ones met their doom, whether in the fierce, angry 
embrace of the waters of Conemaugh, or in the deadly 
grip of the fire fiend, who claimed the homes of Johns- 
town for his own above the fatal bridee. 

Every hour it becomes more and more apparent 
that the exact number of lives lost will never be known. 
Up to the present time the disposition has been to un- 
der rather than overestimate the number of lives 
sacrificed. 

A Mother Rescued by Her Daughter. 

A daughter of John Duncan, superintendent of the 
Johnstown Street Gar Company, had an awful strug- 
gle in rescuing her mother and baby sister. Mrs. 
Duncan and family had taken refuge on a roof, when 
a large log came floating down the river, striking the 
house with im.mense force, knocking Mrs. Duncan and 
daughter into the fast running river. Seeing what had 



206 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

happened, Alvania, her fifteen-year-old daughter, 
leaped into the water, and after a hard struggle landed 
both on the roof of the house. 

The members of the Cambria Club tell of their bat- 
tle for life in the following manner : They were about 
to sit down to dinner when they heard the crash, and 
knowing what had occurred they started for the attic 
just as the flood was upon them. When the members 
were assured of their safety they at once commenced 
saving others by grasping them as they floated by on 
tree tops, houses, etc. In this manner they saved 
seventy persons from death. 

The Clock Stopped at 5.20. 

One of the queerest sight in the centre of the town 
is a three-story brick residence standing with one wall, 
the others having disappeared completely, leaving the 
floors supported by the partitions. In one of the up- 
per rooms can be seen a mantel with a lambrequin on 
it and a clock stopped at twenty minutes after five. In 
front of the clock is a lady's fan, though from the 
marks on the wall-paper the water has been over all 
these things. 

In the upper part of the town, where the back water 
from the flood went into the valley with diminished 
force, there are many strange scenes. There the 
houses were toppled over one after another in a row, 
and left where they lay. One of them was turned 
completely over and stands with its roof on the foun- 
dations of another house and its base in the air. The 
owner came back, and getting into his house through 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 207 

the windows walked about on his ceiling. Out of this 
house a woman and her two children escaped safely 
and were but little hurt, although they were stood on 
their heads in the whirl. Every house has its own 
story. From one a woman shut up in her garret es- 
caped by chopping a hole in the roof. From another 
a Hungarian named Grevins leaped to the shore as it 
went whirling past and fell twenty-five feet upon a pile 
of metal and escaped with a broken leg. Another is 
said to have come all the way from very near the start 
of the flood and to have circled around with the back 
water and finally landed on the flats at the city site, 
where it is still pointed out. 



CHAPTER XI. 
New Tales of Horror. 

The accounts- contained in the foregoing- chapters 
bring this appalling story of death down to June 4th. 
We continue the narrative as given from day to day 
by eye-witnesses, as this is the only method by which 
a full and accurate description of Johnstown's 
unspeakable horror can be obtained. 

On the morning of June 5th one of the leading 
journals contained the following announcements, 
printed in large type, and preceding its vivid account 
of the terrible situation at Johnstown. 

Death, ruin, plague ! Threatened outbreak of dis- 
ease in the fate stricken valley. Awful effluvia from 
corpses ! Swift and decisive means must be taken to 
clear away the masses of putrefying matter that un- 
derlie the wreck of what was once a town. Proposed 
use of explosives. Crowds of refugees are already 
attacked by pneumonia and the germs of typhus 
pervade both air and water. Victims yet unnum- 
bered. Dreadful discoveries hourly made ! Heaps 
of the drowned, the mangled and the burned are 
found in pockets between rocks and under, packed 
accumulations of sand ! Pennsylvania regiments 
ordered to the scene to keep ward over an afflicted 
and heart-broken people. Blame where it belongs. 

( 208) 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 209 

The ears of the inhabitants were dulled to fear by 
warnings many times repeated — forty-two years ago 
the dam broke — vivid stories of witnesses of the great 
tragedy — the owners of the lake must bear a gigantic 
burden of remorse— sufferings of survivors ! 

These were the terrible headings in a single issue of 
a newspaper. 

A registry of the living who were residents of Johns- 
town prior to the flood was begun to-day. Out of a 
total population of 39,400 the names of only 10,600 
have been recorded. This may give an approximate 
idea of the number of those who lost their lives. 
Gaunt Menace of Pestilence. 

The most important near fact of to-day is the 
increasing danger of pestilence. 

As the work of disengaging the bodies of the dead 
progresses the horrible peril becomes more and more 
apparent. There is need of the speediest possible 
measures to offset the gravity of the sanitary situa- 
tion. 

From every part of the stricken valley the same cry 
of alarm arises, for at every point where the dead are 
being discovered, as the waters continue to abate, the 
same peril exists. 

The use of explosives, especially dynamite, has been 
discussed. There is some opposition to it, but it may 
yet be resorted to. The great mass of ruins at the 
Pennsylvania Railroad bridge, which is still smoking 
and smouldering, is a ghastly mine of human flesh 
and bones in all sorts of hideous shapes, and unless 
14 



210 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



desperate means are employed, cannot be cleared 
away in weeks to come. 

Still, vigorous work in that direction is being per- 




READING THE HORRIBLE NEWS. 



formed, and explosives will be used in a limited degree 
to further it. This great work may be divided into two 
parts — the clearing away of the mass of debris lodged 
against the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge, and the ex- 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 211 

amination and removal of the many wrecked buildings 
which mark the site of Johnstown. 

Order Out of Chaos. 

Slowly something like order is beginning to appear 
in the chaos of destruction. Enough militia came to- 
day to put the town under strict martial law. Four 
hundred men of the Fourteenth regiment, of Pitts- 
burgh, are here. There will be no more tramping over 
the ruins by ungoverned mobs. There will be no more 
fears of rioting. 

The supplies of food are constantly growing. The 
much needed money is beginning to come in, though 
not at all needless relief committees are beginning to 
go out. Better quarters for the sufferers are being 
provided. Better arrangements for systematic relief 
are made. Something of the deep gloom has been 
dispelled, though Johnstown is still the saddest spot 
on earth. 

The systematic attempt to clear up the ruins at the 
gorge and get out the bodies imprisoned there began 
to-day. The expectations of ghastly discoveries were 
more than realized. Scores of burned and mangled 
bodies were removed. 

Freaks of the Torrent. 

The great waste where the city stood looked a little 
different to-day. Some attempt was made to clear up 
the rubbish, and fires were burning in a dozen places 
to get rid of it. Tents for the soldiers and some of 
the sufferers were put up in the smooth stretch of 
sand where a great, five story hardware store used to 



212 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Stand. The dead animals that were here and there in 
the debris were removed, to the benefit of the towns- 
people's health. 

Curious things come to light where the rubbish was 
cleared away. The solid cobblestone pavement had 
been scooped up by the force of the water, and in 
some places swept so far away that there was not a 
sign of it. Behind a house that was resting on one 
corner was found a wickerwork baby carriage full of 
mud, but not injured or scratched in the least nor yet 
buried in the mud, but looking as if it had been rolled 
there and left. Very close to it was a piece of railroad 
iron that must have been carried half a mile, bent as if 
it were but common wire. Exactly on the site of a 
large grocer^' store was a box of soap and a bundle of 
clothespins, while of all the brick and stone, of which 
the store was built, and all the heavy furniture it con- 
tained there was not the slightest trace. 

Many articles of wearing apparel were found here, 
but no bodies could be discovered in the whole stretch 
of the plain, from which it is inferred that most of the 
deaths occurred at the gorge or else the flood swept 
them far away. 

Reminders of a Broken Home. 

One of the few buildings that are left in this part of 
town is the fine house of Mr. Geranheiser, of the Cam- 
bria Iron Company. It presents a queer spectacle— 
that is common here but has not often been seen be- 
fore. The flood reached almost to the second floor 
and was strong enough to cut away about half the 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 213 

house, leaving the rest standing. The whole interior 
of the place can be seen just as the frightened inmates 
left it. The carpets are torn up from the first floor, 
but the pictures are still hanging on the walls and an 
open piano stands against the wall full of mud ; a 
Brussels carpet being half way out of the second story 
on the side where the wreck was and showing exactly 
how high the water came. There was a centre table 
in the room and an open book on it. Chairs stood 
about the room and the pictures were on the walls, 
and half of the room was gone miles away. 
Seven Acres of Wreckage. 

Just below the bare plain where the business block 
of Johnstown stood, and above the stone arch bridge 
on which the Pennsylvania Railroad crossed the river, 
are seven acres of the wreckage of the flood. The 
horrors that have been enacted in that spot, the 
horrors that are seen there every hour, who can 
attempt to describe ? Under and amid that mass of 
conglomerate rubbish are the remains of at least one 
thousand persons who died the most frightful of 
deaths. 

This is the place where the fire broke out within 
twenty minutes after the flood. It has burned ever 
since. The stone arch bridge acted as a dam to the 
flood, and five towns were crushing each other against 
it. A thousand houses came down on the great wave 
of water, and were held there, a solid mass in the jaws 
of a Cyclopean vise. 

A kitchen stove upset. The mass took fire. A 



214 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

thousand people were imprisoned in these houses. 
A thousand more were on the roofs. For most of 
them there was no escape. The fire swept on from 
house to house. The prisoners saw it coming and 
shrieked and screamed with terror, and ran up and 
down tlieir narrow quarters in an agony of fear. 
Sights to Freeze Tlieir Blood. 

Thousands of people stood upon the river bank and 
saw and heard it all and still were powerless to help. 
They saw people kneeling in the flames and praying. 
They saw families gathered together with their arms 
around each other and waiting for death. They saw 
people going mad and tearing their hair and laughing. 
They saw men plunge into the narrow crevices be- 
tween the houses and seek death in the water rather 
than wait its coming in the flames. Some saw their 
friends and some their wives and children perishing 
before them, and some in the awful agony of the hour 
went mad themselves and ran shrieking to the hillsides, 
and stronger men laid down on the ground and wept. 

All that night and all the next day, and far into 
the morning of Monday, these dreadful shrieks re- 
sounded from that place of doom. The fire burned on, 
aided by the fire underneath, added to by fresh fuel 
coming down the river. All that time the people stood 
helpless on the bank and heard those heartrending 
sounds. What could they do ? They could not fight 
the fire. Every fire engine in the town lay in that mass 
of rubbish smashed to bits. For hours they had to 
wait until they could get telegraph word to surround- 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 215 

ing towns, and hours more until the fire engines ar- 
rived at noon on Monday. 

Wrecks ot Five Iron Bridges. 

The shrieks ceased early in the morning. Men 
had began to search the ruins and had taken out the 
few that still lived. The fire engines began to 'play 
on the still smouldering fire. Other workmen began 
to remove the bodies. The fire had swept over the 
whole mass from shore to shore and burned it to the 
water. A great field of crushed and charred timbers 
was all that was left. The flood had gorged this in so 
tightly that it made a solid bridge above the water. 
A tremendous, irresistible force had ground and 
churned and macerated the debris until it was a con- 
fused, solid, almost welded, conglomerate, stretching 
from shore to shore, jammed high up against the 
stone bridge and extending up the river a quarter of 
a mile, perhaps half as wide. In this tangled heap 
and crush of matter were the twisted wrecks of five 
iron bridges, smashed locomotives, splintered dwell- 
ings and all their contents ; human beings and domes- 
tic animals, hay and factory machinery ; the rich con- 
tents of stores and brick walls ground to powder — all 
the products of human industry, all the elements of 
human interests, twisted, turned, broken in a mighty 
mill and all thrown together. 

A Sickening Spectacle. 

I walked over this extraordinary mass this morning 
and saw the fracrments of thousands of articles. In one 
place the roofs of forty frame houses were packed in to- 



216 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

gether just as you would place forty bended cards one 
on top of another. The iron rods of a bridge were 
twisted into a perfect spiral six times around one of 
the girders. Just beneath it was a woman's trunk, 
broken up and half filled with sand, with silk dresses 
and a veil streaming out of it. From under the trunk 
men were lifting the body of its owner, perhaps, so 
burned, so horribly mutilated, so torn from limb to 
limb, that even the workmen, who have seen so many 
of these frightful sights that they have begun to get 
used to them, turned away sick at heart. 

I saw in one place a wrecked grocery store — bins of 
coffee and tea, flour, spices and nuts, parts of the 
counter and safe mingled together. Near it was the 
pantry of the house, still partly intact, the plates and 
saucers regularly piled up, a waiter and a teapot, but 
not a sign of the woodwork, not a recognizable outline 
of a house. In another place a halter, with a part of 
a horse's head tied to a bit of a manger, and a mass of 
hay and straw about, but no other signs of the stable 
in which the horse was burned. Two cindered towels, 
a cake of soap in a dish, and a bit of carpet were 
taken to indicate the location of a hotel. I saw a 
child's skull in a bed of ashes, but no sign of a body. 
Kecognized by Fragrments, 

In another place was a human foot and crumbling 
indications of a boot, but no signs of a body. A hay 
rick, half ashes, stood near the centre of the gorge. 
Workmen who dug about it to-day found a chicken 
coop, and in it two chickens, not only alive but cluck- 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 217 

ing happily when they were released. A woman's 
hat, half burned ; a reticule, with a part of a hand still 
clinging to it ; two shoes and part of a dress told the 
story of one unfortunate's death. Close at hand a 
commercial traveller had perished. There was his 
broken valise, still full of samples, fragments of his 
shoes and some pieces of his clothing. 

Scenes like these were occurring all over the 
charred field where men were working with pick and 
axe and lifting out the poor, shattered remains of 
human beings, nearly always past recognition or iden- 
tification, except by guesswork, or the locality where 
they were found. Articles of domestic use scattered 
through the rubbish helped to tell who some of the 
bodies were. Part of a set of dinner plates told one 
man where in the intangible mass his house was. In 
one place was a photograph album with one picture 
recognizable. From this the body of a child near by 
was identified. A man who had spent a day and all 
night looking for the body of his wife, was directed to 
her remains by part of a trunk lid. 

Dead Bodies Caressed. 

Poor old John Jordan, of Conemaugh ! Many a 
tear ran over swarthy cheeks for him to-day. All his 
family, his wife and children, had been swept from his 
sight in the flood. He wandered over the gorge 
yesterday looking. for them, and last night the police 
could not bring him away. At daylight he found his 
wife's sewing machine and called the workmen to help 
him. First they found a little boy's jacket that he 



218 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

recognized and then they came upon the rest of them 
all burled together, the mother's burned arms still 
clinging to the little children. Then the white headed 
old man sat down in the ashes and caressed the dead 
bodies and talked to them just as if they were alive 
until some one came and led him quietly away. With- 
out a protest he went to the shore and sat down on a 
rock and talked to himself, and then got up and dis- 
appeared on the hills. 

To Blow Up the Gorge. 
Was this the only such scene the day saw ? There 
were scores like it. People worked in ruins all day to 
find their relatives and then went home with horrible 
uncertainty. People found what they were looking 
for and fainted at the sight. People looked and cried 
aloud and came and stood on the banks all day, afraid 
to look and still afraid to go away. The burned 
bodies are not the only ones in the gorge. Under the 
timbers and held down in the water there must be 
hundreds that escaped the fire, but were drowned. 
To get at these the gorge is to be blown up with 
dynamite. The sanitary reasons for such a step are 
becoming hourly more apparent. It is the belief of 
the physicians that a pestilence will be added to the 
other horrors of the place if such a thing is not done. 
All day the bodies have been brought to shore. 
Those that were not recognized were carried on 
stretchers to the Morgue. One hundred and twenty 
of the identified bodies were carried over the bridge 
in one procession. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 219 

Relief work for the suffering goes on at the head- 
quarters of the Relief Committee on that little, muddy, 
rubbish-filled street which escaped destruction at the 
edge of the flood. 

The building is a wretched shanty, once a Hungar- 
ian boarding-house, and a long line of miserable 
women stretches out in front of it all day waiting for 
relief They are the unfortunate who have lost every- 
thing in the flood. 

Quarters for five thousand of these people are pro- 
vided in tents on the hillside. For provisions they are 
dependent on the charity of the country. Bread and 
meat are served out to them on the committee's order. 

They are the most mournful and pitiable sight. 
There was not one in the line who had not lost some 
one dear to her. Most of them were the wives of 
merchants or laborers who went down in the disaster. 
They were the sole survivors of their families. Very 
few had any more clothes than they wore when their 
houses were washed away. They stood there for 
hours in the rain yesterday without any protection, 
soaked with the drizzle, squalid and utterly forlorn — a 
sight to move a heart of stone. 

Silent Sufferers. "^ 

They did not talk to one another as women gener- 
ally do even when they are not acquainted. They 
got no words of sympathy from any one, and they 
gave none. Not a word was spoken along the whole 
line. They simply stood and waited. In truth, there 
is nothing about the survivors of the disaster that 



220 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Strikes one so forcibly as their evident inability to 
comprehend their misfortune and the absence of sym- 
pathetic expressions among them. It is not because 
they are naturally stolid, but the whole thing is so vast 
and bears upon them so heavily they cannot grasp it. 

People in California know much more about the 
disaster than any resident of Johnstown knows ; more 
information about it can be gotten from towns-people 
forty miles away than from those who saw it. The 
people here are not at all lacking in sympathy or 
kindliness of heart, but what words of sympathy 
would have any meaning in such a tremendous catas- 
trophe ? Every person of Johnstown has lost a rela- 
tive or a friend, and so has every other resident he 
meets. They seem to see instinctively that con- 
dolence would be meaningless. 

Famine HappUy Averted. 

On the west side of the lower town one or two little 
streets are left from the flood. They are crowded all 
the time with the survivors. As I have gone among 
them I have heard nothing but such conversations as 
this, which is literally reproduced :— 

" Hello, Will ! Where's Jim ? " 

"He's lost." 

•'Is that so! Goodby." 

Another was : — 

"Good morning, Mr. Holden ; did you save Mrs. 
Holden?" 

"No ; she went with the house. You lost your two 
boys, didn't you?" 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 221 

"Yes. Good morning." 

Two women met on the narrow rope bridge which 
spans the creek. As they passed one said : — 

•' How about Aunt Mary ? " 

"Oh, she's lost; so is Cousin Hattie." 

It gives an outside listener a strange sensation to 
hear people talk thus with about as little emotion as 
they would talk about the weather. But the people of 
Johnstown had so much to do with death that they 
think about nothing else. I will undertake to say that 
half the people have not the slightest idea what day of 
the week or month this is. 

A Bope Bridge of Siirhs. 

To get from one part of the town to another it is 
necessary to cross the river or creek which is now 
flowing over the sites of business blocks. Of course 
every vestige of a bridge was swept far away, and to 
take their places two ropes have been hung from high 
timbers built upon the sandy island that was the city's 
site. On these ropes narrow boards are tied. The 
whole structure is not more than four feet wide, and 
it hangs trembling over the water in a way that makes 
nervous people shudder. Over this frail thing hun- 
dreds of people crowd every hour, and why there has 
not been another disaster is something no one can un- 
derstand. 

The river is rising steadily, and all the afternoon the 
middle of the bridge sagged down into the water, but 
the people kept on struggling across. Many of them 
carried coffins containing bodies from the Morgue. 



222 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

There are no express wagons, no hearses — scarcely 
any vehicles of any kind in the town — and all the 
coffins have to be carried on the shoulders of the men. 

Coffins are a dreadfully common sight. It is im- 
possible to move a dozen steps in any direction 
without meeting one or very likely a procession of 
of them. One hundred of them were piled up in front 
of the Morgue this morning. Twice as many more 
were on the platform of the Pennsylvania station. 
Carloads of coffins were being unloaded from freight 
cars below town and carried along the roads. Almost 
every house has a coffin in it. Every boat that crosses 
the river carries one, and rows of them stood by the 
bank to receive the bodies. 

Merely a Mud Plain. 

There is a narrow fringe of houses on each side of 
the empty plain, which escaped because they were 
built on higher ground. Fine brick blocks and paved 
streets filled the business part of the town, which was 
about a mile long and half a mile wide. Where these 
blocks stood mud is in some places six feet deep. 
Over and through it all is scattered an extraordinary 
collection of rubbish — boilers, car wheels, fragments 
of locomotives, household furniture, dead animals, 
clothing, sewing machines, goods from stores, safes, 
passenger and street cars, some half buried in the 
sand, some all exposed, helter-skelter. 

It is simply impossible to realize the tremendous 
force exercised by the flood, though the imagination is 
assisted by the presence of heavy iron beams twisted 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 223 

and bent, railroad locomotives swept miles away, rails 
torn up, the rocks and banks slashed away, and brick 
walls carried away, leaving no traces of their founda- 
tions. The few stone houses that resisted the shock 
were completely stripped of all their contents and 
filled four feet deep with sand and powdered debris. 
A Glimpse from a Window. 
As I write this, seated within a curious circular affair, 
which was once a mould for sewer pipe, are two oper- 
ators busy with clicking instruments. The floor is a 
foot deep with clay. There are no doors. There are 
no windows which boast of glass or covering of any 
kind. The lookout embraces the bulk of the devas- 
tated districts. Just below the windows are the steep 
river banks, covered with a miscellaneous mass thrown 
up by the flood. The big stone bridge is crowded with 
freight cars loaded with material for repairing the 
structure and with people who are eager to see some- 
thing horrible. 

That Faneral Pyre. 

The further half of the bridge which was swept 
away has been replaced by a trembling wooden affair, 
wide enough only for two persons to walk abreast. 
To the left of the bridge and across the river are the 
great brick mills of the Cambria Iron and Steel Com- 
pany, crushed and torn out of a semblance to work- 
shops. Just in front of the office is what has been 
called the " funeral pyre," and which threatens to be- 
come a veritable breeding spot of pestilence. 

Just before me a group of red-capped firemen are 



224 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

directing a stream of water upon such portions of the 
mass as can be reached from the shore. 
Where Death Was Busiest. 

Over to the right, at the edge of a muddy lagoon 
which marks the limit of the levelling rush of the mad 
torrent, there are dozens and dozens of buildings lean- 
ing against each other in the oddest sort of jumble. 
The spectacle would be ludicrous if it were not so aw- 
fully suggestive of the tragic fate of the inmates. Be- 
hind this border land are the regions where death was 
wofully busy. In some streets a mile from any rail- 
road track locomotives and cars are scattered among 
the smouldering ruins. In the river the rescuers are 
busy, and so are the Hungarians and native born 
thieves. 

Men take queer souvenirs away sometimes. One 
came up the bank a short time ago with a skull and 
two leg bones, all blackened and burned by the fire. 

There is, of course, no business done, and those 
who have been spared have little to do save watch for 
a new phase of the greatest tragedy of the kind in 
modern history. On Prospect Hill is a town of tents 
where the homeless are housed and fed, and where 
also a formidable city of the dead has been just pre- 
pared. Such are some of the scenes visible from the 

window. 

The Skeleton of Its Former Self. 

The water has receded in the night almost as 
rapidly as it came, and behind it remains the sorriest 
sight imaginable. The dove that has come has no 



- THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 22a 

green leaf of promise, for Its wings are draped vrith 
the hue of mourning and desolation. There now lies 
the great skeleton of dead Johnstown, The great 
ribs of rocky sand stretch across the chest scarred and 
covered with abrasions. Acres of mud, acres of 
wreckage, acres of unsteady, tottering buildings, acres 
of unknown dead, of ghastly objects which have been 
eagerly sought for since Friday ; acres of smoky, 
streaming ruin, of sorrow for somebody, lie out there 
in the sunshine. 

Like Unto Arcadia After tlie Fire. 

The awful desolation of the scene has been de- 
scribed often enough already to render a repetition of 
the attempt here unnecessary. These descriptlQiis 
have been as truthful and graphic as it is possible for 
man to make them ; but none have been adequate- — 
none could be. Where once stood solid unbro-ken 
blocks for squares and squares, with basements and 
subcellars, there is now a level plain as fre^ froim 
obstruction or excavation as the fair fields of Arcadia 
after they had been swept by the British flames. The 
major and prettier portion of the beai.bTuI eity has 
literally been blotted from the face of the earth. 
Disease Succeeds to Calaixtl^. 

Up the ragged surface of Prospect Hill, whither 

hundreds of terrified people fled for safety Friday 

night, I scrambled this afterno€)>r>. I came upon a 

pneumonia scourge which bids feir to do for a itwmber 

of the escaped victims what the iood could r>€>t. Death 

has pursued them to their Highest places, and terror 
15 



226 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

will not die. Every little house on the hill — and there 
are a hundred or two of them — had thrown its doors 
open to receive the bruised, half-clad fugitives on the 
dark day of the deluge, and every one was now a 
crude hospital. Half the women who had scaled the 
height were so overcome with fright that they have 
been . bedridden ever since. There had been pneu- 
monia on the hill, but only a few cases. To-day, 
however, several fresh cases developed among the 
the flood fugitives, and a local physician said the pros- 
pects for a scourge are all too promising. The 
enfeebled condition of the patients, the unhealthy 
atmosphere pervading the valley and the necessarily 
close quarters in which the people are crowded render 
the spread of the disease almost certain. 
The Military Called Out. 

At the request of the Sheriff, Adjutant General Hast- 
ings called out the Fourteenth regiment of Pittsburgh, 
who are to be stationed at Johnstown proper, to guard 
the buildings and against emergencies. Other reasons 
are known to exist for this precaution. Bodies were 
recovered to-day that have been robbed by the ghouls. 
It is known that one lady had several hundred dollars 
in her possession just before the disaster, but when 
the body v/as recovered there was not a cent in her 
pocket. 

The Hungarians attacked a supply wagon between 
Morrellville and Cambria City to-day. The drivers of 
the wagon repulsed them, but they again returned. A 
;second fight ©nsued, but after lively scrambling the 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 227 

Hungarians were again driven away. After that 
drivers and guards of supply wagons were permitted 
to go armed. 

General Hastings was seen later in the day, and 
when asked what caused him to order the militia said * 
"There is no need of troops to quell another disturb- 
ance, but now there are at least two thousand men at 
work in Johnstown clearing up the debris, and I think 
that it will not hurt to have the Fourteenth regiment 
here, as they can guard the banks and all valuables. 
The Sheriff consulted me in the matter. He stated 
that his men were about worn out, and he thought that 
we had better have some soldiers. So I ordered them.'* 

The people, aroused by repeated outrages, are bit- 
terly hounding the Hungarians, and a military force is 
essential to see that both sides preserve order. 
Indignant Battery B. 

A number of the members of Battery B and the 
Washington infantry, who were ordered back from 
Johnstown, are very indignant at Adjutant General 
Hastings, who gave the order. They claim that Gen- 
eral Hastings not only acted without a particle of 
judgment, but when they offered to act as picket, do 
police duty or anything else that might be required of 
them, they state that they were treated like dogs. 

They also insist that their services are badly needed 
for the reason that the hills surrounding Johnstown, 
are swarming with tramps, who are availing them- 
selves of every opportunity to secure plunder from the 
numerous wrecks or dead bodies. 



228 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

They told the General that they came more as pri- 
vate citizens than as soldiers, and were willing to do 
what they could. The General abruptly ordered 
them back to Pittsburgh. Lieutenant Gammel, who 
had charge of the men, said : " We would like to 
have stayed but we had to obey orders and we took 
the first train for home. Even the short time we 
were there the fifty-five men had pulled out thirty-five 
bodies." 

Members of the battery said : "This is a fine 
Governor we have, and as for Hastings, the least said 
about his actions the better." 

' The Adjutant General's order calling out the Four- 
teenth regiment and ordering them to this place is not 
looked upon as being altogether a wise move by many 

citizens. 

Harrow Escape from Liynching. 

About eleven o'-clock this morning, Captain W. R. 
Jones, of Braddock, and his men discovered a man 
struggling in the . hands of an angi y crowd on Main 
street. The crov/d were belaboring the man with 
sticks and fists, and Captain Jones entered the house 
where the disturbance occurred, and the man shouted : 
*T have a right here, and am getting what belongs to 
my folks !" 

The crowd then demanded that he show what he had 
in his possession. He reluctantly produced a handful 
of jewelry from his pocket, among which was a gold 
watch, which was - no sooner shown than a gentleman 
who was standing nearby claimed it as his own, saying 



THE JOHNSTOVNN HORROR. 229 

that the house where they were standing was the resi- 
dence of his family. He then proceeded to identify 
clearly the property. The crowd, convinced of the 
thief's guilt, wanted to lynch him, but after an exciting 
scene Captain Jones pacified them. The man was 
escorted out of town by officers, released and ordered 

not to return. 

Johnstown Succored. 

There will be no more charity except for the help- 
less. The lengthening of the death roll has fearfully 
•shortened the list to be provided for. There is now 
an abundance of food and clothing to satisfy the 
present necessities of all who are in need. Beginning 
to-morrow morning, June 5th, aid will not be extended 
to any who are able to work except in payment for 
work. All the destitute who are able and willing will 
be put to work clearing up the wreck in the river and 
the wastes where the streets stood. They will be 
paid $2.50 and $3.00 per day for ordinary laboring 
work, and thus obtain money with which to buy pro- 
visions, which will be sold to them at reduced prices. 

Those who will not work will be driven off. The 
money collected will be paid out in wages, in defray- 
ing funeral expenses and in relieving those whose 
bread providers have been taken away. 
Dainties Not Wanted. 

The supplies of food and clothing are far in excess of 
the demand to-day. The mistake of sending large 
quantities of dainties has been made by some of the 
relief committees. Bishop Phelan has been on the 



230 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

ground all day in company with a number of Catholic 
priests from Pittsburgh. 

•He has ordered provisions for all the sufferers who 
have taken shelter in the buildings over which he has 
placed the Little Sisters of the Poor. There are sev- 
eral hundred people now being cared for by the relief 
corps, and as the work of rescue goes on the number 

increases. 

Bent on Charity. 

Mrs. Campbell, president of the Allegheny Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union, arrived this morning, 
and with Miss Kate Foster, of Johnstown, organized a 
temporary home for destitute children on Bedford 
street. On the same train came a delegation from the 
Smithfield Methodist Episcopal Church. They began 
relieving the wants of the suffering Methodists. 

Committees from the Masonic and Odd Fellows 
from Pittsburgh are looking after their brethren. 

Mr. Moxham, the iron manufacturer, is Mayor pro. 
tem. of Johnstown to-day. He is probably the busiest 
man in the United States ; although for days without 
sleep, he still sticks nobly to his task. Hundreds of 
others are like him. Men fall to the earth from sheer 
fatigue. There are many who have not closed an eye 
in sleep since they awoke on Friday morning ; they are 
hollow-eyed and pitiful looking creatures. Many have 
lost near relatives and all friends. 

Shylocks. 

Men and horses are what are most needed to-day. 
Some of the unfortunates who could not go to the 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 231 

relief trains endeavored to obtain flour from the 
wrecked stores in Johnstown. One dealer was charg- 
ing ^5 a sack for flour, and was getting it in one or two 
cases. Suddenly the crowd heard of the occurrence. 

Several desperate men went to the store and doled 
the flour gratuitously to the homeless and stricken. 
Another dealer was selling flour at ^1.50 a sack. He 
refused to give any away, but would sell it to any one 
who had the money. Otherwise he would not allow any 
one to go near it, guarding his store with a shot-gun. 
Masons on the Field, 

The special train of the Masonic Relief Association 
which left Pittsburgh at one o'clock yesterday after- 
noon on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad did not reach 
here until just before midnight, at which time it was 
impossible to do anything. Under the circumstances, 
the party concluded to pass the night in the cars, 
making themselves as comfortable as possible with 
packing boxes for beds and candle boxes for pillows. 

They spent the morning distributing the food and 
clothing among the Masonic sufferers. In addition to 
a large quantity of cooked food, sandwiches, etc., as 
well as flour and provisions of every description, the 
Relief Committee brought up 100 outfits of clothing 
for women and a similar number for girls, and a mis- 
cellaneous lot for men and boys. The women's outfits 
are complete, and include underwear, stockings, shoes, 
dresses, wraps and hats. They are most acceptable 
in the present crisis, and much suffering has already 
been relieved by them. 



232 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

The Knights of Pythias have received a large dona- 
tion of money from Pittsburgh lodges. 

Appeal to President Harrison. 

Adjutant General Hastings yesterday afternoon 
telegraphed to President Harrison requesting that 
government pontoons' be furnished to enable a safe 
passageway to be made across the field of charred 
ruins above Johnstown Bridge for the purpose of 
prosecuting search for the dead. Late last night an 
answer was received from the President stating that 
the pontoons would be at once forwarded by the 
Secretary of War. 

A despatch of sympathy has been received by Adju- 
tant General Hastings from the Mayor of Kansas 
City, who states that the little giant of the West will 
do her duty in this time of need. 

Fraternities Uniting', 

The various fraternities, whose work has been re- 
ferred to in various despatches, have established head- 
quarters and called meetings of surviving local mem- 
bers. These meetings are held In Alma Hall, belong- 
ing to the Odd Fellows, which, owing to its solid con- 
struction, withstood the pressure of the flood. From 
the headquarters at Alma Hall most of the commit- 
tees representing the various secret societies are dis- 
tributing relief. 

The first hopeful view of the situation taken by the 
Odd Fellows' Committee has been clouded by the dis- 
mal result of further investigations. At last night's 
meeting at the old schoolhouse on Prospect Hill 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 233 

definite tidings wer*i received from but thirty mem- 
bers out of a total of 501. 

Cambria Lodge, with a membership of eighty-five, 
mostly Germans, seems to have - been entirely wiped 
out, not a single survivor having yet reported. 
Call for Workers. 

Last night Robert Bridgard, a letter carrier of Johns- 
town, marched at the head of three hundred men to 
the corner of Morrell avenue and Columbia street, 
where he mounted a wagon and made a speech on 
the needs of the hour. Chiefest of these, he consid- 
ered, was good workmen to clear away the debris and 
extract the bodies from the wreckage. 

He closed with a bitter attack on the lazy Huns and 
Poles, who refused to aid in the work of relief and yet 
are begging and even stealing the provisions that are 
sent here to feed the sufferers. The crowd num ered 
nearly one thousand, and greeted Bridgard's words 
with cheers. 

Another resident of the city then mounted a barrel 
and made a ringing speech condemning the slothful 
foreigners, who have proven themselves a menace to 
the valley and its inhabitants. The feelings of the 
crowd were aroused to such an alarming extent that 
it was feared it would culminate in an attack on the 
worthless Poles and Hungarians. 

The following resolution was adopted with a wild 
shout of approval, and the meeting adjourned : — 

'' Eesolved,,ThsLt we, the citizens of Johnstown, in 
public meeting assembled, do most earnestly beg the 



234 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Relief Corps of the Johnstown sufierers to furnish no 
further provisions to the Hungarians and Poles of this 
city and vicinity except in payment of services ren- 
dered by them for the relief of their unfortunate 
neighbors. 

''Resolved, Further, that in case of their refusal to 
render such service they be driven from the doors of 
the relief trains and warned to vacate the premises." 
Hospitals and Morgues. 

Those who doubt that many thousands lost their 
lives in this disaster have not visited the morgues. 
There are three of these dreadful places crowded so 
full of the unidentified dead that there is scarcely room 
to move between the bodies. To the largest morgue, 
which I visited this morning, one hundred and sixty 
bodies have been brought for identification. When it 
is remembered that most of the bodies were swept 
below the limits of Johnstown, that many more found 
here have been identified at once by their friends and 
that it is certain that many bodies were consumed en- 
tirely in the fire at the gorge, the fact gives some idea 
of the extent of the calamity. 

The largest morgue is at the Fourth ward school- 
house, a two-story brick building which stands just at 
the edge of the high mark of the flood. The bodies 
were laid across the school children's desks until they 
got to be so numerous that there was not room for 
them, excepting on the floor. Soldiers with crossed 
bayonets keep out the crowd of curious people who 
have morbid appetites to gratify. None of these 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 235 

people are of Johnstown. People of Johnstown do 
not have time to come to look for friends, and they 
give the morgue a wide berth. Those who do come 
have that dazed, miserable look that has fallen to all 
the residents of the unhappy town. They walk 
through slowly and look at the bodies and go away 
looking no sadder nor any less perplexed than when 
they came in. One of the doctors in charge at the 
morgue told me that many of these people had come 
in and looked at the bodies of their own fathers and 
brothers and gone away without recognizing them, 
though not at all disfigured. 

* That's Jim." 
In some instances it had been necessary for other 
persons, who knew the people, to point out the dead 
to the living and assure them positively of the iden- 
tification before they could be aroused. I saw a rail- 
road laborer who had come in to look for a friend. 
He walked up and down the aisles like a man in a 
trance. He looked at the bodies, and took no appar- 
ent interest in any of them. At last he stopped 
before one of them which he had passed twice before, 
muttered, "That's Jim," and went out just as he had 
come in. Two other identifications I saw during the 
hour I was there were just like this. There was no 
shedding of tears nor other showing of emotion. 
They gazed upon the features of their dead as if they 
were totally unable to comprehend it all, and reported 
their identification to the attendants and watched the 
body as it was put into a coffin and went away. 



236 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Many came to look for their loved ones, but I did not 
see one show more gfrief or realization of the dreadful 
character of their errand than this. Arrangements 
with the morgues are complete and efficient. The 
bodies are properly prepared and embalmed and a 
description of the clothing is placed upon each. 
Hospital Arrang-ements. 
The same praise cannot be given the hospital ar- 
rangements. The only hospital is a small wooden 
church, in which apartments have been roughly impro- 
vised, with blankets for partitions. Only twenty pa- 
tients can be cared for here, and the list of wounded is 
more than two hundred. The rest have been taken 
to the' private houses that were not over-crowded 
with the homeless survivors, to farmers in the coun- 
try and to outlying towns. Two have died. It did 
not occur to any one until lately to get any nurses 
from other places to take care of the patients, and 
even now most of the nurses are Johnstown people 
who have lost relatives and have their own cares. 
These persons sought out the hospital and volunteered 

for the work. 

A Procession of ColHns. 

A sight most painful to behold was presented to 
view about noon to-day, when a procession of fifty 
unidentified coffined bodies started up the hill above 
the railroad to be buried in the improvised cemetery 
there. Not a relation, not a mourner was present. 
In fact, it is doubtful if these dead have any surviving 
relatives. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 237 

The different graveyards are now so crowded that it 
will take several days to bury all the bodies that have 
been deposited in them. This was the day appointed 
by the Citizens' Committee for burying all the uniden- 
tified dead that have been laying in the different 
morgues since Sunday morning, and about three hun- 
dred bodies were taken to the cemeteries to-day. 

It was not an unsual sight to see two or three coffins 
going along, one after another. It is impossible to 
secure wagons or conveyances of any kind, conse- 
quently all funeral processions are on foot. 

Several yellow flags were noticed sticking up from 
the black wreckao-e above the stone bridg-e. This was 
a new plan adopted by the sanitary corps to indicate at 
what points bodies had been located. As it grows 
dark the flags are still up, and another day will dawn 
upon the imprisoned remains. People who had lost 
friends, and supposed they had drifted into this fatal 
place, peered down into the charred mass in a vain en- 
deavor to recognize beloved features. 

Uiireoognizable Victims of Fire. 

There are now nearly two thousand men employed in 
different parts of the valley clearing up the ruins and 
prosecuting diligent search for the undiscovered dead, 
and bodies are discovered with undiminished fre- 
quency. It becomes hourly more and more apparent 
that not a single vestige will ever be recognized of 
hundreds that were roasted in the flames above the 
bridge. 

A party of searchers have just unearthed a charred 



238 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

and unsightly mass from the smouldering debris. The 
leader of the gang pronounced the remains to be a 
blackened leg, and it required the authoritative verdict 
of a physician to demonstrate that the ghastly dis- 
covery was the charred remains of a human being. 
Only the trunk remained, and that was roasted beyond 
all semblance to flesh. Five minutes* search revealed 
fragments of a skull that at once disintegrated of its 
own weight when exposed to air, no single piece being 
larger than a half dollar, and the whole resembling 
the remnants of shattered charcoal. 

Within the last hour a half dozen discoveries In no 
way less horrifying than this ghastly find have been 
made by searchers as they rake with sticks and hooks 
in the smouldering ruins. So difficult Is it at times to 
determine whether the remains are those of human 
beings that it is apparent that hundreds must be 
burned to ashes. The number that have found a last 
resting place beneath these ruins can at the best never 
be more than approximated. 

A Tast Charnel House. 

Every moment now the body of some poor victim 
is taken from the debris, and the town, or rather the 
remnants of it, Is one vast charnel house. The scenes 
at the extemporized morgue are beyond powers of 
description In their ghastllness, ^hile the moans and 
groans of the suffering survivors, tossing in agony, 
with bruised and mangled bodies, or screaming In a 
delirium of fever as they Issue from the numerous 
temporary hospitals, make even the stoutest hearted 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 239 

quail with terror. Nearly two thousand bodies have 
already been recovered, and as the work of examining 
the wreckage progresses the conviction grows that the 
magnitude of the calamity has not yet been approx 
imated. 

The Pile of Debris Still Burning-. 

The debris wedged against the big Pennsylvania 
Railroad stone bridge is still burning, and the efforts 
of the firemen to quench or stay the progress of the 
flames are as futile as were those of Gulliver's Lilli- 
putian firemen. The mass, which unquestionably 
forms a funeral pyre for thousands of victims who lie 
buried beneath it, is likely to burn for weeks to come. 
The flames are not active, but burn away in a sullen, 
determined fashion. 

There are twenty-six firemen here now — all level- 
headed fellows — who keep their unwieldy and almost 
exhausted forces under masterful control. 

Although they were scattered all over the waste 
places to-day, the heavy work was done in the Point 
district, where a couple hundred mansions lie in solid 
heaps of brick, stone and timbers. 

One Corpse Every Five Minutes. 

Here the labors of the searchers were rewarded by 
the discovery of a corpse about every five minutes. 
As a general thing the bodies were mangled and unre- 
cognizable unless by marks or letters on their persons. 
In every case decomposition has set in and the work of 
the searchers is becoming one that will test their 
stomachs as well as their hearts. Wherever one turns 



240 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Pitttburghers of prominence are encountered. They 
are busy, determined men, rendering valuable ser- 
vice. 

Chief Evans, of the Pitsburgh Fire Department, was 
hustling around with a force of twenty-four more fire- 
men, just brought up to relieve those who have been 
working so heroically since Saturday. Morris M. 
Mead, superintendent of the Bureau of Electricity, 
headed a force of sixteen sanitary inspectors from 
Pittsburgh, who are doing great work among the 
dead. 

How Bodies are Treated. 

There are six improvised morgues now in Johns- 
town. They are in churches and schoolhouses, the 
largest one being in the Fourth Ward schoolhouse, 
where planks have been laid over the tops of desks, 
on which the remains are placed. A corpse is dug 
from the bank. It is covered with mud. It is taken 
to the anteroom of the school, where it is placed un- 
der a hydrant and the muck and slime washed off. 
With the slash of a knife the clothes are ripped open 
and an attendant searches the pockets for valuables or 
papers that would lead to identification. Four men 
lift the corpse on a rude table, and there it is thor- 
oughly washed and an embalming fluid injected in the 
arm. With other grim bodies the corpse lies in a 
larger room until it is identified or becomes offensive. 
In the latter case it is hurried to the large grave, a 
grave that will hereafter have a monument over it 
bearing the inscription "Unknown Dead." 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 241 

The number of the latter is growing hourly, be- 
cause pestilence stalks in Johnstown, and the bloated, 
disfigured masses of flesh cannot be held much longer. 
Levelled by Death. 

Bodies of stalwart workmen lie beside the remains 
of refined ladles, many of whom are still decked with 
costly earrings and have jewels glittering on the 
fingers. Rich and poor throng these quarters and 
gaze wath awe-struck faces at the masses of mutila- 
tions in the hope of recognizing a missing one, so as 
to accord the body a decent burial. 

From Death's Gaping^ Jaws. 

We give here the awful narrative of George Irwin's 
experience. Irwin is a resident of Hillside, Westmore- 
land county, and was discovered in a dying condition 
in a clump of bushes just above the tracks of the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad, about a mile below Johnstown. 
When stretched upon two railroad ties near the track 
his tongue protruded from his mouth and he gasped as 
if death was at hand. With the assistance of brandy 
and other stimulants he was in a degree revived. He 
then told the following story : 

" I was visiting friends in Johnstown on Friday 
when the flood came up. We were submerged with- 
out a moment's warning. I was taken from the win- 
dow of the house in which I was then a prisoner by 
Mr. Hay, the druggist at Johnstown, but lo^t my foot- 
ing and was not rescued. I clung to a saw log until 
I struck the works of the Cambria Iron Company, 
when I caught on the roof of the building. I re- 
16 



242 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR, 

mained there for nearly an hour, when I was knocked 

again from my position by a piece of a raft. I floated 

on top of this until I got down here and I stuck in an 

apple tree. 

Preferred Deatli to Such Siglits. 

" I saw and heard a number of other unfortunate 
victims when swept by me appealing for some one to 
save them. One woman and two children were float- 
ing along in apparent safety ; then they struck the 
corner of a building and all went down together. 

" I would rather have died than have been com- 
pelled to witness that sight. 

" I have not had a bit to eat since Friday night, but 
I don't feel hungry. I am afraid my stomach is gone 
and I am about done for." 

He was taken to a hospital by several soldiers and 
railroad men who rescued him. 

A Young Lady's Experiences. 

Miss Sue Caddick, of Indiana, who was stopping at 
the Brunswick Hotel, on Washington street, and was 
rescued late Friday evening, returned home to-day. 
She said she had a premonition of danger all day and 
had tried to get Mrs. Murphy to take her children 
and leave the house, but the lady had laughed at her 
fears and partially dissipated them. 

Miss Caddick was standing at the head of the 
second flight of stairs when the flood burst upon the 
house. She screamed to the Murphys — father, 
mother and seven children — to save themselves. She 
ran up stairs and got into a higher room, in which die 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 2^ 

little children, the oldest of whom was fourteen years, 
also ran. The mother and father were caught and 
whirled into the flood and drowned in an instant. 

The waters came up and the children clung to the 
young lady, who saw that she must save herself, and 
she was compelled to push the little ones aside and 
cling to pieces of the building, which by this time had 
collapsed and was disintegrating. All of the children 
were drowned save the oldest boy, who caught a tree 
and was taken out almost unhurt near Blairsville. 
Miss Caddick clung to her fraction of the building, 
which was pushed into the water out of the swirl, and 
in an hour she was taken out safe. She said her 
agony in having to cut away from the children was 
greater than her fear after she got into the water. 
An Old Iiady*s Great Peril. 

Mrs. Ramsey, mother of William Ramsey and aunt 
of Lawyer Cassidy, of Pittsburgh, was alone in her 
house when the flood came. She ran to the third story; 
and although the house was twisted ofl" its foundation, 
it remained intact, and the old lady was rescued after 
being tossed about for twenty-four hours. 

James Hines, Jr., of Indiana, one of the survivors, 
to day said that he and twelve of the other guests took 
refuge on the top of the Merchants' Hotel. They 
were swept off and were carried a mile down the 
stream, then thrown on the shore. One of the party, 
James Ziegler, he said, was drowned while trying to 
get to the top of the building. 

One hundred and seventy-five of the corpses 



244 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

brought to Nineveh by the flood were buried this 
afternoon and to-nio^ht on the crest of a hill behind the 
town. Three trenches were dug two hundred feet 
long, seven feet wide and four feet deep. The coffins 
were packed in very much as grocers' boxes are stored 
in a warehouse. Of the two hundred bodies picked 
up in the fields after the waters subsided 117 were un- 
identified and were buried marked "Unknown." 
Twenty-five were shipped to relatives at outside points. 
In many cases friends of those who were recognized 
were unable to do anything to prevent their consign- 
ment to the trenches. Altogether twenty-seven were 
identified to-day. The bodies as fast as they were 
found were taken to the storehouse of Theodore F. 
Nimawaker, the station agent here, and laid out on 
boards. It was impossible on account of their condi- 
tion to keep them any longer. The County Commis- 
sioners bought an acre of ground for ^100, out of 
which they made a cemetery. 

By liocomotive Headlights. 
It was sad to see the coffins going up the steep hill 
on farm wagons, two or three on each wagon. No 
tender mourners followed the mud-covered hearses. 
Enough laborers sat on each load to handle it 
when it reached its destination. The Commissioners 
of Cumberland county have certainly behaved very 
handsomely. The coffins ordered were of the best. 
Some economical citizens suggested that they buy 
an acre of marsh land by the river, which could 
be had for a few dollars, but they declared that 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 246 

the remains should be placed in dry ground. The life- 
less day reposes now far out of the reach of the deadly 
waters which go suddenly down the Conemaugh Val- 
ley. It is a pretty spot, this cemetery, and one that a 
poet would choose for a resting place. Mountains 
well wooded are on every hand ; no black factory 
smoke defaces the sky line. 

Two locomotive headlights shed their rays over the 
cemetery to-night and gave enough light for the men 
to work by. They rapidly shoveled in the dirt. No 
priests were there to consecrate the ground or say a 
prayer over the cold limbs of the unknown. Upon 
the coffins I noticed such inscriptions as these : " No. 
6 1, unknown girl, aged eight years, supposed to be 
Sarah Windser." "No. 72, unknown man, black hair, 
aged about thirty-five years, smooth face." Some of 
the bodies were more specifically described as "fat," 
"lean," and to one I saw the term "lusty" applied. 



CHAPTER XII. 
Pathetic Scenes. 

Some of the really pathetic scenes of the flood are 
just coming to the public ear. John Henderson, his 
wife, his three children, and the mother of Mrs. Hen- 
derson remained in their house until they were carried 
out by the flood, when they succeeded in getting upon 
some drift. Mr. Henderson took the babe from his 
wife, but the little thing soon succumbed to the cold 
and the child died in its father's arms. He clung to it 
until it grew cold and stiff^ and then, kissing it, let it 
drop into the water. His mother-in-law, an aged lady, 
was almost as fragile as the babe, and in a few minutes 
Mr. Henderson, who had managed to get near to the 
board upon which she was floating saw tliat she, too, 
was dying. He did what little he could to help her, 
but the cold and the shock combined were too much. 
Assuring himself that the old lady was dead, Mr. Hen- 
derson turned his attention to his own safety and 
allowed the body to float down the stream. 

In the meantime Mrs. Henderson, who had become 
separated from her husband, had continued to keep 
her other two children for some time, but finally a 
great wave dashed them from her arms and out of her 
sight. They were clinging to some driftwood, how- 
ever, and providentially were driven into the very arms 

(246) 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 247 

of their father, who was some distance down the 
stream quite unconscious of the proximity of his loved 
ones. Another whirl of the flood and all were driven 
over into some eddying water in Stony Creek and 
carried by backing water to Kernville, where all were 
rescued. Mrs. Henderson had nearly the same ex- 
perience. 

Dr. Holland's Awful Plunge, 

Dr. Holland, a physician who lived on Vine street, 
saw both of his children drown before his eyes, but 
they were not washed out of the building. He took 
both of them in his arms and bore them to the roof, 
caring nothing for the moment for the rising water. 
Finally composing himself, he kissed them both and 
watched them float away. His father arrived here 
to-day to assist his son and take home with him the 
bodies of the children, which have been recovered. 
Dr. Holland, after the death of his children, was 
carried out into the flood and finally to a building, in 
the window of which a man was standing. The doctor 
held up his hands; the man seized them and dex- 
trously slipping a valuable ring from the finger of one 
hand, brutally threw him out into the current again. 
The physician was saved, however, and has been look- 
ing for the thief and would-be murderer ever since. 
Cruslied in His Own House. 

David Dixon, an engineer in the employ of the 
Cambria Iron Works, was with his family in his house 
on Cinder Street, when the flood struck the city. The 
shock overturned his house against that of his n^igh- 



248 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

bor, Evans, and he, with his infant daughter, Edith, 
was pinned between the houses as a result of the up- 
turning:. Both houses were carried down ap^ainst the 
viaduct of the Pennsylvania Railroad and there, in 
sight of his wife and children, excepting a 1 5-year-old 
lad, he was drowned, the water rising and smothering 
him because of his inability to get from between the 
buildings. His wife was badly crushed and it is 
thought will be an invalid the remainder of her days. 
The children, including the babe in its father's arms, 
were all saved, and the other boy, Joe, one of the 
brightest, bravest, handsomest little fellows in the 
world, was in his news-stand near the Pennsylvania 
passenger station, and was rescued with difhculty by 
Edward Decker, another boy, just as the driftwood 
struck the little store and lifted it high off its founda- 
tion. 

Babies wlio Died Together. 

This morning two little children apparently not over 
three and four years old, were taken from the water 
clasped in each other's arms so tightly that they could 
not be separated, and they were coffined and buried 
together. 

A bright girl, in a gingham sun-bonnet and a faded 
calico dress came out of the ruins of a fine old brick 
house next the Catholic church on Jackson street this 
afternoon. She had a big platter under her arm and 
announced to a bevy of other girls that the china was 
all right in the cupboard, but there was so much water 
in there that she didn't dare go in. She chatted away 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 249 

quite volubly about the fire in the Catholic church, 
which also destroyed the house of her own mother, 
Mrs. Foster. "I know the church took fire after the 
flood," she said, "for mother looked out of the window 
and said : 'My God ! Not only flood, but fire ! '" It 
was a burning house from Conemaugh that struck the 
house the other side of the church and set it on fire. 
Aunt Tabby's Trunk. 

" I didn't think last Tuesday I'd be begging to-day, 
Emma," interrupted a young man from across the 
stream of water which ran down the centre of Main 
Street, "I'm sitting on your aunt Tabby's trunk." 
The girl gave a cry, half of pained remembrance, half 
of pleasure. "Oh, my dear Aunt Tabby !" she cried, 
and, rushing across the rivulet, she threw herself across 
the battered leather trunk — sole surviving relic of Aunt 
Tabby ; but Aunt Tabby and the finding thereof was 
a light among other shadows of the day. 
Nothing but a Baby. 

Gruesome incidents came oftener than pathetic 
ones or serio-comic. General Axline, the Adjutant 
General of Ohio, was walking down the station plat- 
form this afternoon, when a boy came sauntering up 
from the viaduct with a bundle in a handkerchief. 
The handkerchief dripped water. *' What have you 
there, my boy ?" asked the General. The boy cow- 
ered a minute, thouo-h the General's tone was kindlv, 
for the boy, like every one else in Johnstown, was 
prepared for a gruff accostal every five minutes from 
some official, from Adjutant General to constable. 



250 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR, 

Finally he answered :: " Nothing but a baby, sir," and 
began to opei% his bundle in proof of the truth of his 
statement. But the big soldier did not put him to the 
proof. He turned away sick at heart. He did not 
even ask the boy if he knew whose baby it was. 
How tlie Cofl3.ns Were Carried. 

A strangely utilitarian device was that of a Pitts- 
burgh sergeant of Battery B. With one train from 
the West came several hundred of the morbidly cur- 
ious, bent upon all the horrors which ihey could 
stomach. A crowd of them crossed the viaduct and 
stopped to gaze round-eyed upon a pile of empty cof- 
fins meant for the bodies of the identified dead found 
up and across the river in the ruins of Johnstown 
proper. As they gazed the Sergeant, seeking trans- 
portation for the coffins, came along. A somewhat 
malicious inspiration of military genius lighted his eye. 
With the best imitation possible of a regular army 
man, he shouted to the idlers, " Each of you men take 
a coffin." The idlers eyed him. 

•' What for ? " one asked. 

*' You want to go into town, don't you?" replied 
the Sergeant. " Well, not one of you goes unless he 
takes a coffin with him." 

In ten minutes time way was made at the ticklish 
rope bridge for a file of sixteen coffins, each borne by 
two of the Sergeant's unwilling conscripts, while the 
Sergeant closed up the rear. 

Some of the scenes witnessed here were heartrend- 
ing in the extreme. In one case a beautiful girl came 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 251 

down on the roof of a building which was swung in near 
die tower. She screamed to the operator to save her 
and one big, brave fellow walked as far into the river 
as he could and shouted to her to try to guide herself 
into the shore with a bit of plank. She was a plucky 
girl, full of nerve and energy, and stood upon her 
frail support in evident obedience to the command of 
the operator. She made two or three bold strokes 
and actually stopped the course of the raft for an 
instant. 

Then it swerved and went out from under her. 
She tried to swim ashore, but in a few seconds she 
was lost. Something hit her, for she lay quietly on 
her back, with face pallid and expressionless. Men 
and women in dozens, in pairs and singly ; children, 
boys, big and little, and wee babies \vere there in 
among the awful confusion of water, drowning, gasp- 
ing, struggling and fighting desperately for life. 

Two men on a tiny raft shot into the swiftest part 
of the current. They crouched stolidly, looking at 
the shores, while between them, dressed in white and 
kneeling with her face turned heavenward was a girl 
seven years old. She seemed stricken with paralysis 
until she came opposite the tower and then she turned 
her face to the operator. She was so close they 
could see big tears on her cheeks and her pallor was 
as death. The helpless men on shore shouted to her 
to keep up courage, and she resumed her devout 
attitude and disappeared under the trees of a projec- 
tion a short distance below. "We could not see her 



2o2 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

come out again," said the operator, "and that was all 
of it." 

" Do you see that fringe of trees?" said the oper- 
ator, pointing to the place where the little girl had 
gone out of sight. 

"Well, we saw scores of children swept in there. 
I believe that when the time comes they will find 
almost a hundred bodies of children in there among 
those bushes." 

Floated to their Death. 

A bit of heroism is related by one of the telegraph 
operators at Bolivar. He says: "I was standing on 
the river bank about 7.30 last evening when a raft 
swept into view. It must have been the floor of a dis- 
mantled house. Upon it were grouped two women 
and a man. They were evidently his mother and sis- 
ter, for both clung to him as though stupefied with fear 
as they were whirled under the bridge here. The 
man could save himself if he had wished by simply 
reaching up his hand and catching the timber of the 
structure. He apparently saw this himself, and the 
temptation must have been strong for him to do so, 
but in one second more he was seen to resolutely 
shake his head and clasp the women tighter around 
the waist. 

On they sped. Ropes were thrown out from the 
tree tops, but they were unable to catch them, though 
they grasped for the lines eagerly enough. Then a 
tree caught in their raft and dragged after them. In 
this way they swept out of view." 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 253 

Still finding bodies by scores in the burning debris ; 
still burying the dead and caring for the wounded ; 
still feeding the famishing and housing the homeless, 
and this on the fourth day following the one on which 
Johnstown was swept away. The situation of horror 
has not changed ; there are hundreds, and it is feared 
thousands, still buried beneath the scattered ruins that 
disfigure the V-shaped valley in v/hich Johnstown 
stood. A perfect stream of wagons bearing the dead 
as fast as they are discovered is constantly filing to the 
improvised morgues, where the bodies are taken for 
Identification. Hundreds of people are constantly 
crowding to these temporary houses, one of which is 
located in each of the suburban boroughs that surround 
Johnstown. Men armed with muskets, uniformed sen- 
tinels, constituting the force that guard the city while 
It is practically under martial law, stand at the doors 
and admit the crowd by tens. 

In tlie Central Dead House. 

In the Central dead house in Johnstown proper, as 
early as 9 o'clock to-day there lay two rows of ghastly 
dead. To the right were twenty bodies that had been 
identified. They were mostly w^omen and children 
and they were entirely covered with white sheets, and 
a piece of paper bearing the name was pinned at the 
feet. To the left were eighteen bodies of the 
unknown dead. As the people passed they were 
hurried along by an attendant and gazed at the uncov- 
ered faces seeking to identify them. All applicants 
for admission if it is thought they are prompted by 



254 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

idle curiosity, are not allowed to enter. The central 
morgue was formerly a school-house, and the desks 
are used as biers for the dead bodies. Three of the 
former pupils yesterday lay on the desks dead, with 
white pieces of paper pinned on to the white sheets 
that covered them, giving their names. 

Looking- for Their lioved Ones. 

But what touching scenes are enacted every hour 
about this mournful building. Outside the sharp 
voices of the sentinels are constantly shouting : "Move 
on." Inside, weeping women and sad-faced, hollow- 
eyed m.en are bending over loved and familiar faces. 
Back on the steep grassy hill which rises abruptly on 
the other side of the street are crowds of curious 
people who come in from the country round about to 
look at the wreckage strewn around where Johnstown 
was. "Oh, Mr. Jones," a pale-faced woman asks, 
walking up, sobbing, "can't you tell me where we can 
get a coffin to bury Johnnie's body ? " 

"Do you know," asks a tottering old man, as the 
pale-faced woman turns away, " whether they have 
found Jennie and the children ? " 

"Jennie's body has just been found at the bridge," 
Is the answer, "but the children can't be found." 
Jennie is the old man's widowed daughter, and she 
was drowned, with her two children, while her hus- 
band was at work over at the Cambria Mills. 
Tliey Kan for Their Liives. 

Miss Jennie Paulson, who was on the Chicago day 
express, is dead. She was seen to go back widi a com- 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 255 

panlon into the doomed section of the day express in 
the Conemaugh Valley, and is swept away in the 
flood. 

Last evening, after the evening train had just left 
Johnstown for Pittsburgh, it was learned that quite a 
number of the survivors of the wrecked train, who 
have been at Altoona since last Saturday, were on 
board. After a short search they were located, and 
quite an interesting talk was the result. Probably the 
most interesting interview, at least to Pittsburghers, 
was that had with Mrs. Montgomery Wilcox, of Philadel- 
phia, who was on one of the Pullman sleepers attached 
to the lost express train. She tells a most exciting tale 
and confirms beyond the shadow of a doubt the story 
of Miss Jennie Paulson's tragic death. 
A Fatal Pair of Rubbers. 

She says: "We had been making but slow pro- 
gress all the day. Our train laid at Johnstown nearly 
the whole day of Friday. We then proceeded as far 
as Conemaugh, and had stopped for some cause or 
other, probably on account of the flood. Miss Paul- 
son and a Miss Bryan were seated in front of me. 
Miss Paulson had on a plaid dress with shirred waist 
of red cloth goods. Her companion was dressed in 
black. Both had lovely corsage bouquets of roses. I 
had heard that they had been attending a wedding 
before they left Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh lady was 
reading a novel. Miss Bryan was looking out of the 
window. When the alarm came we all sprang toward 
the door, leaving everything behind us. I had just 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

reached the door when poor Miss Paulson and her 
friend, who were behind me, decided to return for 
their rubbers, which they did. 

Cliased as by a Serpent. 
"I Sprang from the car into a ditch next the hill- 
side in which the water was already a foot and a half 
deep and with the others climbed up the mountain 
side for our very lives. We had to do so as the water 
glided up after us like a huge serpent. Any one ten 
feet behind us would have been lost beyond a doubt. 
I glanced back at the train when I had reached a place 
of safety, but the water already covered it and the 
Pullman car in which the ladies were was already roll- 
ing down the valley in the grasp of the angry waters. 
Quite ar number of us reached the house of a Mr. 
Swenzel, or some such name, one of the railroad men, 
whom we afterward learned had lost two daughters at 
Johnstown. We made ourselves as comfortable as 
possible until the next day, when we proceeded by 
conveyances as far as Altoona, having no doubt but 
what we could certainly proceed east from that point. 
We found the middle division of the Pennsylvania 
Railroad was, if anything, in a worse condition than 
the western, so we determined to go as far as Ebens- 
burg by train, whence we reached Johnstown to-day 

by wagon." 

Mrs. G. W. Child's Escape. 

Mrs. George W. Childs, of Philadelphia, was also a 
member of the party. She was on her way West, and 
reached Altoona on Friday, after untold difficulties. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



257 



She is almost prostrated by the severe ordeal through 
which she and many others have passed, and therefore 
had but little to say, only averring that Mrs. Wilcox 
and her friends, who were on the lost train, had passed 
through perils beside which her own sank into insigni- 
ficance. 

Assistant Superintendent Crump telegraphs from 




SWEPT AWAY ON THE TRAIN, 

Blairsvilie Junction that the day express, eastbound 
from Chicago to New York, and the mail train from 
Pittsburgh bound east, were put on the back tracks in 
the yard at Conemaugh when the flooded condition of 
the main tracks made it apparently unsafe to proceed 
further. When the continued rise of the water made 
their danger apparent, the frightened passengers fled 
17 



258 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

from the two trains to the hills near by. Many in their 
wild excitement threw themselves into the raging cur- 
rent and were drowned. It is supposed that about 
fifteen persons lost their lives in this way. 

After the people had deserted the cars, the railroad 
officials state, the two Pullman cars attached to the 
day express were set on fire and entirely consumed. 
A car of lime was standing near the train. When the 
water reached the lime it set fire to the car and the 
flames reaching the sleepers they were entirely con- 
sumed. 

Exhuming- the Dead. 

Three hundred bodies were exhumed to-day. In 
one spot at Main and Market streets the workmen 
came upon thirty, among whom were nine members 
of the Fitzparis family — the father, mother, seven 
children and the grandfather. Only one child, a little 
girl of nine years, is left out of a family of ten. She 
is now being cared for by the citizens* committee. 
The body of a beautiful young girl was found at the 
office of the Cambria Iron Company. When the 
corpse was conveyed to the morgue a man entered in 
search of some relatives. The first body he came to 
he exclaimed: "That's my wife," and a few feet further 
off he recognized in the young girl found at the Cambria 
Iron Company's office his daughter, Theresa Downs. 
Both bodies had been found within a hundred yards of 
each other. 

A dozen instances have occurred where people have 
claimed bodies and were mistaken. This is due to the 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 259 

over-zeal of people to get their relatives and bury 
them. Nine children walked into one of the relief sta- 
tions this morning, led by a girl of sixteen years. They 
said that their father, mother and two other children 
had been swallowed up by the flood, the family having 
originally comprised thirteen persons in all. Their 
story was investigated by Officer Fowler, of Pittsburgh, 
and it was found to be true. Near Main street the 
body of a woman was taken out with three child- 
ren lying on her. She was about to become a mother. 
Nursing Their Sorrows. 

The afflicted people quietly bear their crosses. The 
calamity has been so general that the sufferers feel 
that everybody has been treated alike. Grouped to- 
gether, the sorrows of each other assist in keeping up 
the strength and courage of all. In the excitement 
and hurry of the present, loss of friends is forgotcen, 
but the time will come when it is all over and the 
world gradually drifts back to business, forgetful that 
such a town as Johnstown ever existed. 

Then it is that sufferers will realize what they have 
lost. Hearts will then be full of grief and despair and 
the time for sympathy will be at hand. Michael Mar- 
tin was one of those on the hillside when the water 
was rushing through the town. The spectacle was 
appalling. Women on the hills were shrieking and 
ringing their hands — in fact, people beyond reach of 
the flood made more noise than those unfortunate 
creatures struggling in the water. The latter in try- 
ing to save themselves hadn't time to shriek. 



260 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Michael Martin said : " I was on the hillside and 
watched the flood. You ask me what it looked like. 
I can't tell. I never saw such a scene before and 
never expect to again. On one of the first houses 
that struck the bridge there was standing a woman 
wearing a white shawl. When the house struck the 
bridge she threw up her hands and fell back into the 
water. A little boy and girl came floating down on a 
raft from South Fork. The water turned the raft 
toward the Kernville hill and as soon as it struck the 
bank he jumped on the hill, dragging his little sister 
with him. Both were saved. 

" I saw three men and three women on the roof of 
a house. When they were passing the Cambria Iron 
Works the men jumped off and the women were lost. 
Mr. Overbeck left his family in McM. row and swam 
to the club house, then he tried to swim to Morrell's 
residence and was drowned. His family was saved. 
At the corner of the company's store a man called for 
help for two days, but no one could reach him. The 
voice finally ceased and I suppose he died. 
A Brave Gii"l. 

"Rose Clark was fastened in the debris at the 
bridge. Her coolness was remarkable and she was 
more calm than the people trying to get her out. She 
begged the men to cut her leg off. One man worked 
six hours before she was released. She had an arm 
and leg broken. I saw three men strike the bridge 
and go down. William Walter was saved. He was 
anchored on Main street and he saw about two hun- 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 261 

dred people in the water. He believes two-thirds of 
them were drowned. A frigl;itened woman clung to a 
bush near him and her long hair stood straight out. 
About twenty people were holding to those in the 
neighborhood, but most of them were lost. 

"John Reese, a policeman, got out on the roof of his 
house. In a second afterward the building fell in on 
his wife and drowned her. She waved a kiss to her 
husband and then died. Two servant girls were burned 
in the Catholic priest's house. The church was also 
consumed. 

Along: the Valley of Death. 

Fifteen miles by raft and on foot along the banks of 
the raging Conemaugh and in the refugee trains 
between Johnstown and Pittsburgh. Such was the 
trip, fraught with great danger, but prolific of results, 
which the writer has just completed. All along the 
line events of thrilling interest mingled with those of 
heartrending sadness transpired, demonstrating more 
than ever the magnitude of the horrible tragedy of last 
Friday. 

Just as the day was dawning I left the desolate city 
of Johnstown, and, wending my way along the shore 
of the winding Conemaugh to Sheridan, I succeeded 
in persuading a number of brave and stout-hearted 
men, who had constructed a raft and were about to 
start on an extended search for the lost who are known 
to be strewn all along this fated stream, to take me 
with them. 

The river is still very high, and while the current is 



262 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

not remarkably swift, the still flowing debris made the 
expedition one of peril. Between the starting point 
and Nineveh several bodies were recovered. They 
were mostly imbedded in the sand close to the shore, 
which had to be hugged for safety all the way. Indeed 
the greater part of the trip was made on foot, the raft 
being towed along from the water's edge by the tire- 
less rescuers. 

Just above Sang Hollow the party stopped to assist 
a little knot of men who were engaged in searching 
amid the ruins of a hut which lay wedged between a 
mass of trees on the higher ground. A man's hat and 
coat were fished out, but there was no trace of the 
human being to whom they once belonged. Perhaps 
he is alive ; perhaps his remains are among the hun- 
dreds of unidentified dead, and perhaps he sleeps 
beneath the waters between here and the gulf. Who 

can tell? 

Died in Harness. 

A little farther down we came across two horses 
and a wagon lying in the middle of the river. The 
dumb animals had literally died in harness. Of their 
driver nothing is known. At this point an old w^ooden 
rocker was fished out of the water and taken on shore. 

Here three women were working in the ruins of 
what had once been their happy home. When one of 
them spied the chair it brought back to her a wealth of 
memory and for the first time, probably, since the flood 
occurred she gave way to a flood of tears, tears as 
welcome as sunshine from heaven, for they opened up 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 263 

her whole soul and allowed pent-up grief within to flow 
freely out and away. 

One Touch of Kature. 

"Where in the name of God," she sobbed, " did you 
get that chair ? It was mine — no, I don't want it. Keep 
it and find for me, if you can, my album ; in it are the 
faces of my dead husband and little girl." When the 
rough men who have worked days in the valley of 
death turned away from this scene there was not a dry 
eye in the crowd. One touch of nature, and the 
thought of little ones at home, welded them in heart 
and sympathy to this Niobe of the valley. 

At Sang Hollow we came up with a train-load of 

refugees en route for Pittsburgh. As I entered the 

car I was struck by two things. The first was an old 

man, whose silvered locks betokened his four-score 

years, and the second was a little clump of children, 

three in number, playing on a seat in the upper end 

of the coach. 

Judge Potts* Escape. 

The white-haired patriarch was Judge James Potts, 
aged 80, one of the best known residents of Johns- 
town, who escaped the flood's ravages in a most 
remarkable manner. Beside him was his daughter, 
while opposite sat his son. There was one missing to 
complete the family party, Jennie, the youngest daugh- 
ter, who went down with the tide and whose remains 
have not yet been found. The thrilling yet pathetic 
story of the escape of the old Judge is best told in his 
own language. Said he: 



264 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

" You ask me how I was saved, I answer, God alone 
knows. With my little family I lived on Walnut street, 
next door to the residence of President McMillan, of 
the Cambria Iron Company. When the waters sur- 
rounded us we made our way to the third floor, and 
huddled together in one room, determined, if die we 
must, to perish together. 

Encircled by Water. 

" Higher and higher rose the flood, while our house 
was almost knocked from its foundations by the ever- 
increasing mountain of debris floating along. At last 
the bridge at Woodvale, which had given way a short 
time before, struck the house and split it asunder, as a 
knife might have split a piece of paper, 

" The force of the shock carried us out upon the 
debris,, and we floated around upon it for hours, fin- 
ally landing near the bridge. When we looked about 
for Jennie (here the old man broke down and sobbed 
bitterly) she was nowhere to be seen. She had 
obeyed the Master's summons." 

A Miraculous Escape. 

The three little girls, to whom I have referred, were 
the children of Austin Lountz, a plasterer, living back 
of Water street. They were as happy as happy could 
be and cut up in childish fashion all the way down. 
Their good spirits were easily accounted for when it 
was learned that father, mother, children and all had 
a miraculous escape, when it looked as if all would be 
lost. The entire family floated about for hours on the 
roof of a house, finally landing high upon the hillside. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 265 

Elmer G. Speck, traveling salesman of Pittsburgh, 
was at the Merchants' Hotel when the flood occurred, 
having left the Hurlburt House but a few hours before. 
He said : 

" With a number of others I got from the hotel to 
the hill in a wagon. The sight from our eminence was 
one that I shall never forget — that I can never fully 
describe. The whole world appeared to be topsy-turvy 
and at the mercy of an angry and destroying demon 
of the elements. People were floating about on house- 
tops and in wagons, and hundreds were clinging to 
tree-trunks, logs and furniture of every imaginable 
description. 

'• My sister, Miss Nina, together with my step- 
brother and his wife, whom she was visiting, drifted 
with the tide on the roof of a house a distance of two 
blocks, where they were rescued. With a number of 
others I built a raft and in a short time had pulled 
eleven persons from the very jaws of death." Con- 
tinuing, Mr. Speck related how a number of folks from 
Woodvale had all come down upon their house-tops. 
Mr. Curtis Williams and his family picked their way 
from house to house, finally being pulled in the Cath- 
olic church window by ropes. 

Three of a Family Drowned. <. 

William Hinchman, with his wife and two children, 
reached the stone bridge in safety. Here one of the 
babies was swept away through the arches. The 
others were also swept with the current, and when 
they came out on the other side the remaining child 



266 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

was missing, while below Mrs. Hinchman disappeared, 
leaving her husband the sole survivor of a family of 
four. 

" Did your folks all escape alive ? " I asked of 
George W. Hamilton, late assistant superintendent of 
the Cambria Iron Company, whom I met on the road 
near New Florence. 

" Oh, no," was his reply. " Out of a family of six- 
teen seven are lost. My brother, his wife, two chil- 
dren, my sister, her husband and one child, all are' 
gone ; that tells the tale. I escaped with my wife by 
jumping from a second story window onto the moving 
debris. We landed back of the Morrell Institute safe 
and sound." 

Hairbreadth. ^Escapes. 

The stories of hairbreadth escapes and the annihila- 
tion of families continue to be told. Here is one of 
them. J. Paul Kirchmann, a young man, boarded 
with George Schroeder's family in the heart of the 
town, and when the flood came the house toppled 
over and went rushing away in the swirling current. 
There were seven in all in the party and Kirchmann 
found himself wedged in between two houses, with his 
head under water. He dived down, and when he 
again came to the surface succeeded in getting on the 
roof of one of them. The others had preceded him 
there, and the house floated to the cemetery, over a 
mile and a half away, where all of them were rescued. 
Kirchmann, however, had fainted, and for seven or 
eight hours was supposed to be dead. He recovered, 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 267 

and Is now assisting- to get at the bodies buried in the 
ruins. 

Saloon-keeper Fitzharris and his family of six had the 
lives crushed out of them when their house collapsed, 
and early this morning all of them, the father, mother 
and five children were taken from the wreck, and are 
now at the morgue. Emil Young, a jeweler, lived 
with mother, wife, three sons and daughter over his 
store on Clinton street, near Main. They were all in 
the house when the wild rush of vvater surrounded 
their home, lifted it from its foundation and carried it 
away. Young and his daughter were drowned and it 
v/as then that his mother and wife showed their hero- 
ism and saved the life of the other members of the 
family. 

The mother is 80 years of age, but her orders were 
so promptly given and so ably executed by the 
younger Mrs. Young that when the house floated near 
another in which was a family of nine all were taken 
off and eventually saved. Even after this trying or- 
deal the younger woman washed the bodies of her 
husband and nineteen others and prepared them for 

burial. 

The "Whole Family Escaped. 

Another remarkable escape of a whole family was 
that of William H. Rosensteel, a tanner, of Woodvale, 
a suburb of Johnstown. His house was in the track 
of the storm, and, with his two daughters, Tillie and 
Mamie, his granddaughter and a dog, he was carried 
down on the kitchen roof. They floated into the Bon 



268 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Ton Clothing House, a mile and a half away, on Main 
street. Here they remained all night, but were taken 
off by Mrs. Emil Young and went to Pittsburgh. 

Jacob I. Horner and his family of eight had their 
house in Hornerstown thrown down by the water and 
took refuge in a tree. After awhile they returned to 
their overturned house, but again got into the tree, 
from which they were rescued after an enforced stay 
of a number of hours. 

Charles Barnes, a real estate dealer on Main street, 
was worth ^10,000 last Friday and had around him a 
family of four. To-day all his loved ones are dead and 
he has only ^6 in his pockets. 

The family of John Higson, consisting of himself, 
wife, and young son, lived at 123 Walnut street. 
Miss Sarah Thomas, of Cumberland, was a visitor, 
and a hired man, a Swede, also lived in the house. 
The water had backed up to the rear second-story 
windows before the great wave came, and about 5 
o'clock they heard the screaching of a number of 
whistles on the Conemaugh. Rushing to the windows 
they saw what they thought to be a big cloud ap- 
proaching them. Before they coyld reach a place of 
safety the building was lifted up and carried up Stony 
creek for about one-quarter of a mile. As the water 
rushed they turned into the river and were carried 
about three-quarters of a mile further on. All the 
people were in the attic and as the house was hurled 
with terrific force against the wreckage piled up 
against the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge Higson 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



269 



called to them to jump. They failed to do so, but at 
the second command Miss Thomas leaped through 
the window, the others followed, and after a danger- 
ous walk over lifty yards of broken houses safely 
reached the shore. 




CHILD FOUND THUMPING ON A WRECKED PIANO. 



CHAPTER XIII. - 
Digging for thie Dead. 

A party started in early exploring the huge mass of 
debris banked against the Pennsylvania Railroad 
bridge. This collection, consisting of trees, sides of 
houses, timber and innumerable articles, varies in 
thickness from three or four feet to twenty feet. It is 
about four hundred yards long, and as wide as the 
river. There are thousands of tons in this vast pile. 
How many bodies are buried there it is impossible to 
say, but conservative estimates place it at one thousand 
at least. 

The corps of workmen who were searching the ruins 
near the Methodist Church late this evening were hor- 
rified by unearthing one hundred additional bodies. 
The great number at this spot shows what may be 
expected when all have been recovered. 

When the mass which blazed several days was ex- 
tinguished it was simple to recover the bodies on the 
surface. It is now a question, however, of delving 
into the almost impenetrable collection to get at those 
lodged within. The grinding tree trunks doubtless 
crushed those beneath into mere unrecognizable 
masses of flesh. Those on the surface were nearly all 
so much burned as to resemble nothing human. 

Meanwhile the searchers after bodies, armed with 

( 270) 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 271 

spikes, hooks and crowbars, pry up the debris and un- 
earth what they can. Bodies, or rather fractions of 
them, are found in abundance near the surface. 
Tracing Bodies by tlie Smell. 

I was here when the gang came across one of the 
upper stories of a house. It was merely a pile of 
boards apparently, but small pieces of a bureau and a 
bed spring from which the clothes had been burned 
showed the nature of the find. A faint odor of burned 
flesh prevailed exactly at this spot. " Dig here," said 
the physician to the men. " There is one body at least 
quite close to the surface." The men started in with 
a will. A large pile of underclothes and household 
linen was brought up first. It was of fine quality and 
evidently such as would be stored in the bedroom of a 
house occupied by people quite well to do. Shovels 
full of jumbled rubbish were thrown up, and the odor 
of flesh became more pronounced. Presently one of 
the men exposed a charred lump of flesh and lifted it 
up on the end of a pitchfork. It was all that remained 
of some poor creature who had met an awful death 
betv/een water and fire. 

The trunk was put on a cloth, the ends were looped 
up making a bag of it, and the thing was taken to the 
river bank. It weighed probably thirty pounds. A 
stake was driven in the ground to which a tag was at- 
tached giving a description of the remains. This Is 
done In many cases to the burned bodies, and they lay 
covered with cloths upon the bank until men came with 
coffins to remove them. Then the tag was taken from 



272 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

the stakes and tacked on the coffin lid, which was 
immediately closed up, as identification was of course 
out of the question. There is a stack of coffins by the 
railroad bridge. Sometimes a coffin is carried to the 
spot on the charred debris where the find is made. 
Prodding Corpses with Canes. 

The searchers by thrusting down a stick or fork are 
pretty sure to find a corpse. I saw a man run a cane 
in the debris down to the hilt and it came up with 
human flesh sticking to it. Another ran a stick into 
the thoroughly cooked skull of a little boy two feet 
below the surface. There are bodies probably as far 
down as seventy feet in some cases, and it does not 
seem plain now how they are to be recovered. One 
plan would be to take away the top layers of wood 
with derricks, and of course the mass beneath will rise 
closer to the surface. The weather is cold to-day, and 
the offensive smell that was so troublesome on the 
warm days is not noticeable at a distance. 
Saved From Disfig^uration. 

The workers began on the wreck on Main street 
just opposite the First National Bank, one of the 
busiest parts of the city. A large number of people 
were lost here, the houses being crushed on one side 
of the street and being almost untouched on the other, 
a most remarkable thing considering the terrific force 
of the flood. Twenty-one bodies were taken out in 
the early morning and removed to the morgue. They 
were not very much injured, considering the weight 
of lumber above them. In many instances they were 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 27S 

wedged In crevices. They were all in a good state of 
preservation, and when they were embalmed they 
looked almost lifelike. In this central part of the city 
examination is sure to result in the unearthing of bod- 
ies in every corner. Cottages which are still stand- 
ing are banked up with lumber and driftwood, and it 
is like mining to make any kind of a clear space. I 
have seen relations of people who are missing, and 
who are supposed to be in the ruins of their homes, 
waiting patiently by the hour for men to come and 
take away the debris. 

When bodies are found, the location of which was 
known, there are frequently two or three friends on 
the spot to see them dug up. Four and five of the 
same family have been taken from a space of ten feet 
square. In one part of the river gorge this afternoon 
were found the bodies of a woman and a child. They 
were close together and they were probably mother 
and infant. Not far away was the corpse of a man 
looking like a gnarled and mis-shapen section of a root 
of a tree. The bodies from the fire often seem to 
have been twisted up, as if the victims died in great 
agony. 

Rapidly Burying the Dead. 

The order that was issued last night that all uniden- 
tified dead be buried to-day is being rapidly carried 
out. The Rev. Mr. Beall, who has charge of the 
morgue at the Fourth ward school-house, which is the 
chief place, says that a large force of men has been put 
at work digging graves, and at the close of the after- 
18 



274 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

noon the remains will be laid away as rapidly as it 
can be done. 

In the midst of this Bccne of death and desolation, a 
relenting Providence seems to be exerting" a subduing 
influence. Six days have elapsed since the great dis- 
aster, and the temperature still remains low and chilly 
in the Conemaugh Valley. When it is remembered 
that in the ordinary June weather of this locality from 
two to three days are sufficient to bring an unattended 
body to a state of decay and putrefaction that would 
render it almost impossible to prevent the spread of 
disease throughout the valley, the inestimable benefits 
of this cool weather are almost beyond appreciation. 

The emanations from the half mile of debris above 
the bridge are but little more offensive than yesterday, 
and should this cool weather continue a few days 
longer it is possible hundreds of bodies may yet be 
recovered from the wreck in such a state of preser- 
vation as to render identification possible. Many 
hundreds of victims, however, will be roasted and 
charred into such shapeless masses as to preclude a 
hope of recognition by their nearest relative. 
Getting I>owii to Systematic Work, 

The work of clearing up the wreck and recovering 
the bodies is now being done most systematically. 
Over six thousand men are at work in the various 
portions of the valley, and each little gang of twenty 
men is directed by a foreman, who is under orders 
from the general headquarters. As the rubbish is 
gone over and the bodies and scattered articles of 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 275* 

value are recovered, the debris is piled up in one high 
mass and the torch applied. In this way the valley is 
assuming a less devastated condition. In twenty-four 
hours more every mass of rubbish will probably have 
been searched, and the investigations will be confined 
to the smoking wreck above Johnstown bridge. 

The Westmoreland Relief Committee complained 
of the Indiana county authorities for not having a 
committee to search the shores on that side for bodies. 
They say that all that is being done is by parties who 
are hunting for anything valuable they can find. 

Up to two o'clock this afternoon only eight bodies 
had been taken out of the drift above the bridofe. 
None of them was recognized. The work of pulling 
it out goes on very slowly. It has been suggested 
that a stationary engine should be planted on the east 
side of the pile and a rope and pulley worked on it. 

The Keystone Hotel, a huge frame structure, was 
rapidly being pulled to pieces this morning, and when 
this had been done the work of taking out the bodies 
will be begun at this point. 

The immense wreck will most undoubtedly yield up 
many bodies. The bodies of a woman and three chil- 
dren were taken from the debris in front of the First 
National Bank at ten o'clock this morninef. The 
woman was the mother of the three children, ranging 
in age from one to five years, and she had them all 
clasped in her arms. 

Booth & Flinn, the Pittsburgh contractors, have just 
put to work another larg-e force of men. They have 



276 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

divided the town into districts, and the work is being 

conducted in a systematic manner. Main street is 

being rapidly opened up, and scores of bodies have 

been taken out this morning from under the Hurlburt 

House. 

Only Found One of Her Family. 

The first body taken from the ruins was that of a boy 
named Davis, who was found in the debris near the 
bridge. He was badly bruised and burned. The re- 
mains were taken to the undertaking rooms at the 
Pennsylvania Railroad station, where they were identi- 
fied as those of William Davis. The boy's mother 
has been making a tour of the different morgues for 
the past few days, and was just going through the 
undertaking rooms when she saw the remains of her 
boy being brought in. She ran up to the remains and 
demanded the child. She seemed to have lost her 
mind, and caused quite a scene by her actions. She 
stated that she had lost her husband and six children 
in the flood, and that this was the first one of the 
family that had been recovered. At the First Presby- 
terian Church, which is being used as a morgue, sev- 
enteen bodies taken from the debris and river have 
been brought in. 

The relief corps from Altoona found a body near 
Stony Bridge this morning. On his person was found 
a gold watch and chain, and $250 in money, which was 
turned over to the proper authorities. This corps took 
out some thirty-two bodies or more from the ruins 
yesterday. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 277 

A. J. Hayes, whose wife's body was taken out of 
the river last night, had the body taken up into the 
mountains where he dug her grave and said: — -"I 
buried all that is dear to me. As for myself I don't 
care how soon death overtakes me." 

At quarter past one this afternoon, fifty bodies had 
been taken from the debris in front of the Catholic 
Church in Johnstown borough. About forty of the 
bodies were those of women. They were immediately 
removed to the morgue for identification. 

Dr. Beall, who has the supervision of the morgues 
in Johnstown, said that so far 2,300 bodies had been 
recovered in Johnstown proper, most of which had 
been identified and buried. 

Dynamite and Derricks Used. 

At one o'clock this afternoon the use of dynamite 
was resumed to burst the logs so that the debris in 
the dam at the bridge can be loosened and floated 
down the river. The dynamite is placed in holes 
bored into the massive timbers. When the log has 
been broken a chain is attached to its parts and it is 
then hoisted by a machine on the bridge and dropped 
into the current of the river. Contractor Kirk has 
abandoned the idea of constructing a dam to overflow 
the mass of ruins at the bridge. The water has fallen 
and cannot be raised to a serviceable height. A pow- 
erful windlass has been constructed at a point about 
one hundred feet below the bridge, and a rope 
attached to it is fastened to logs at the edge of the 
debris. In this way the course between one of the six 



278 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Spans of the railroad bridge has been cleared out. 
Where dynamite has been used to burst the logs 
another span has been freed of the debris, a space of 
about twenty by forty feet being cleared. The men 
are now well supplied with tools, but the force is not 
large enough to make rapid headway. It is believed 
that many more bodies will be found when the debris 
is loosened and started down the river. 
Dynamite Tears the Bodies. 

Thirteen bodies were taken from the burning debris 
at the stone bridge at one time this afternoon. None 
of the bodies were recognizable, and they were put in 
coffins and buried immediately. They were so badly 
decomposed that it was impossible to keep them until 
they could be identified. During a blast at the bridge 
this afternoon two bodies were almost blown to pieces. 
The blasting has had the effect of opening the channel 
under the central portion of the bridge. 
Ill Unwlif>lesoinc Company. 

I came up here from Nineveh last night with the 
most disreputable crowd I ever traveled with. They 
were human buzzards flocking to the scene of horrors. 

There was danger of a fight every moment, and if 
one had been started there is little doubt that it would 
have been short and bloody, for the conduct of the 
rowdy portion of the travellers had enraged the decent 
persons, to whom the thought of drunkenness and 
ribaldry at such a time was abhorrent, and they were 
quite ready to undertake the work of pitching the 
demoralized beings pff the cars. 



^ THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 279 

Wedged in here and there between intoxicated ruf- 
fians, who were indulging- in the foulest jests about the 
corpses on which tliey were about to feast their eyes, 
were pale faced women, sad and red eyed, who looked 
as if tliey had had little sleep since the horrible collapse 
of the dam. Some of them were bound for Johnstown 
to claim and bring back bodies already identified, while 
others were on a trip for the ruins to commence a long 
and perhaps fruitless search for whatever might be left 
of their relatives. Some of those who misbehaved 
were friends of the lost, who, worn out with loss of 
sleep, iiad taken to drink and become madmen, but 
die greater part were merely sightseers or robbers of 
the dead- 

Aiaricious Tianips. 

There were many tramps whose avarice had been 
stimulated by hearing of diamond rings and watches 
found on the dead. There was one little drunken 
hunchback who told those in the car who listened to 
him tliat years ago he had quarrelled with his parents 
in Johnstown and had not seen them since, lie was 
on the way now to see if anything was left of them. 
One moment lie was in maudlin tears and the next he 
was cracking some miserable joke about the disaster. 
He went about the car shaking dice with other inebri- 
ated passengers, and in the course of half j nhour had 
won $6. Over this lie exhibited almost the glee <;f a 
maniac, and the fate of his people was lost sight of. 
Then he would presently forget his gains and go sob- 
bing up the aisle looking for listeners to his pitiful stoi y. 



280 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

There were two sinister looking Hungarians in the 
smoking car and their presence excited the anger of 
a handful of drunken maniacs. They made loud 
speeches, denouncing the conduct of Hungarians who 
robbed the Johnstown dead, levelling their remarks at 
the particular two. As they grew more excited they 
demanded that the passengers make a move and lynch 
the fellows. A great deal of trouble would have en- 
sued, doubtless, if the train had not at that moment 
stopped at Sang Hollow, four miles from Johnstown. 
The conductor shouted out that the passengers must 
leave the car and walk along the track the remainder 
of the distance. 

A Strange Procession. 

We started out in the fast gathering darkness and 
the loiterers who held back made a long string. The 
drunken ruffians staggered along the tracks, howling 
with glee and talking about corpses, showing what 
their object was in coming. The tired out and dis- 
heartened women crowded under the shelter of the 
more respectable men. There was one member of 
the Pennsylvania National Guard in the troop with his 
bayonet, and he seemed to be the rallying point for 
the timid. 

When the mob reached the outskirts of Johnstown 
they came across a little camp of military with out- 
posts. I had been told that soldiers were keeping 
people who had no business there out of the lost city, 
and to insure my passage through the lines I had pro- 
cured an order from Mr. McCreery, chairman of the 




(2S1) 



282 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Chamber of Commerce Committee at Pittsburgh, sta- 
ting that I was entitled to go through. I knew that 
the drunken lunatics behind me could have no such 
documents, and I imagined the soldiers would stop 
them. Nothing of the kind happened. Whole troops 
surged through the line. No passes were asked from 
them and they showed none. They only quieted 
down for a moment when they saw the uniforms of 
the National Guard. 

Reinforcing Disorder. 

The mi.)b merely helped to swell the host of thiev^es, 
cutthroats and pickpockets with which the region is 
infested. 

The trains which had passed us going from Johns- 
town to Pittsburgh looked as if they might be made 
up C)f joyous excursionists. The cars were crowded 
to the platforms, and for some reason or other dozens 
of the inebriated passengers thought it appropriate to 
cheer and yell, though God knows the whole surround- 
ino-s were calculated to make a human beinof shed te^ars 
of anguish. The sight of the coffins in the baggage 
cars, some of them containing the dead, had no damp- 
ening effect upon the spirit of these roysterers. 

The reaction from debauches and excitement is ter- 
rible, and there can be little doubt that many minds 
v/iil give way under the strain. One of the wonders 
of the disaster is the absence of suicide and the appa- 
rently calm way in which the most v/ofully bereaved 
Gupp )rt themselves under their terrible loss. It must 
be an unnatural calm. Men have quietly told me that 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 283 

they have lost their entire families and then have sud- 
denly changed the subject and talked of some absurdly 
trivial matter with an a.ir of great interest, but it was 
easy to see that there was some numbing influence 
over the mechanism of the mind. It is unnatural and 
awful. It is almost impossible to realize that the troops 
of workmen leisurely digging in the ruins as if 
engaged in everyday employment are really digging 
for the dead, and it is only in the actual sight of death 
and its emblems that one can persuade one's self that 
it is all true. The want of sleep conduces to an un- 
natural condition of the mind, under which these awful 
facts are bearable to the bereaved. 

Picketing- tlie Kuins. 

It was like a military camp here last night. So 
many citizens have been knocked down and robbed 
that the soldiers had special instructions to see that no 
queer characters got through to the centre of the 
town. I had an excellent chance of seeing how im- 
possible it was for an unauthorized person to move 
about the town easily, although he could get into the 
interior. I had been kindly invited to sleep on a wisp 
of hay in a neighboring barn, but being detained late 
in the valley reached the press headquarters after my 
host had left. It was a question of hunting shelter or 
sleeping on the ground. 

A gentleman whom I met told me that he was living 
in a Baltimore and Ohio day passenger coach about a 
mile out, and that if we could find our way there I was 
welcome to a soft place on the floor. We spoke to 



284 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

the nearest picket. He told us that it would be mad- 
ness to try to cross one part of the ground unless we 
had revolvers, because a gang of Huns were in hiding 
ready to knock down passengers and hold up any one 
who seemed defenceless. However, after a little 
cogitating, he said that he would escort us to General 
Hastings' headquarters, and we started, picking our 
way over the remains of streets and passing over 
great obstructions that had been left by the torrent. 
Ruin and wreck were on every hand. You could not 
tell where one street began and another left off, and 
in some places there was only soft mud, as devoid of 
evidence of the former presence of buildings as a 
meadow is, though they had been the sites of business 
blocks. It was washed clean. 

A Weird Journey. 
Our guide told us the details of the capture of five 
marauders who had been robbing the dead. They had 
cut off the head of a woman found in the debris to get 
her earrings. He said that a number of deputy sher- 
iffs had declared that at dawn they would march to 
the place where the prisoners were and take them out 
and hang them. My military friend said that he and 
his comrades would not be particularly anxious to in- 
terfere. The scene as we picked our way was lighted 
up by camp fires, around which sat groups of deputy 
sheriffs in slouch hats. They were a grim looking set, 
armed with clubs and guns. A few had rifles and 
some wore revolvers in their belts in regular leather 
cowboy pockets. The camp fires were about two 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR 285 

hundred yards apart and to pass them without being 
challenged was impossible. At the adjutant general's 
office we got a pass entitling us to pass the pickets, 
and bidding our guardsman good-night we started off 
escorted by a deputy sheriff. There were long lines 
of camp fires and every few rods we had to produce 
credentials. It was a pretty effect that was produced 
by the blazing logs. They lighted up the valley for 
some distance, throwing in relief the windowless ruins 
of what were once fine residences, bank buildings or 
factories. Embedded in the mud were packages of 
merchandise, such as sugar in barrels, etc., and over 
these we stumbled continually. 

A Muddy Desert. 
Streams were running through the principal streets 
of the city. In some parts all that was left of the 
thoroughfares were the cobble stones — by which it 
was possible to trace streets for a short distance — and 
the street railway tracks remaining in places for 
spaces of a hundred feet or so. There were some 
buildings outside of the track of the full force of the 
torrent, the roofs of which seemed not to have been 
reached. Others had been on fire and had lost parts 
of their walls. It was a dismal sight, this desolation, 
as shown up by the fitful camp fires. It was only 
after climbing over perilous places, crossing streams 
and narrowly escaping with our necks, that we came 
within sight of the car at two o'clock this morning. 
We passed by a school house used as a morgue. 
Several people were inside gazing by lamip , light at 



286 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

the silent bodies in a hunt for lost ones. Piles of 
coffins, brown and white, were in the school play- 
ground, which resounded not many days ago with the 
shouts of children, some of whom lie there now. 
There are heaps of coffins everywhere throughout the 
city. Conversation with the deputy sheriffs showed a 
deep-rooted hatred against the Huns, and a deter- 
mination to shoot them down like dogs if they were 
caught prowling about near the exposed property. 
While we were toiling over debris we heard three 
shots about a quarter of a mile off. We could learn 
nothing of their report. The service done by the 
deputy sheriffs was excellent. 

Blistakcn Itlentilication, 

At St. Columba's Catholic Church the scenes were 
striking in their individual peculiarities. One woman 
came in and identified a body as that of Katie Frank. 
The undertakers labeled it accordingly, but in a few mo- 
ments another woman entered the church, raised the 
lid of the coffin, scanned the face of the corpse, and 
then tore the label from the casket. The undertakers 
were then warned by the woman to be more careful in 
labelling coffins in the future. She then began to 
weep, and left the church in despair. She was Katie's 
mother, and Katie is yet among the wreck in the river 
below. 

The lot of bodies held and coffined at Morrellville 
presented a different feature. The mud was six inches 
deep, and the drizzling rain added gloom to the scene. 
Here and there could be seen, kneeling in the mud, 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 287 

broken l.earted wives and mothers who sobbed and 
praxL'd. The incidents here were heartrending. 

At the i-'oiirdi ward sdioolhouse mortrue a W'Oman 
from }>ie, whose name could not be learned, went to 
the n^.orgue in search of some one, but fainted on see- 
ing th.e lonfj line of coffins. At the Kernville morofue 
one little Loy named Elrod, on finding his father and 
mother ])Oih dcc.d, seized a hatchet, and for some time 
would let no one enter the place, claiming iliac the 
people were l}ir!g to him and wanted t ) rob him of his 
father and mother. 

One sad incident was the sight of tw^o coffins lying 
in the Gautier graveyard wath nobody to bury them. 
A solitary woman was gazing at them m a dazed 
manner, while the rain beat on her unprotected liead. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
HairbreadthL Escapes. 

So vast is the field of destruction that to get an 
adequate idea from any point level with the town is 
simply impossible. It must be viewed from a height. 
From the top of Kernville Mountain just at the east 
of the town the whole strange panorama can be seen. 

Looking down from that height many strange things 
about the flood that appear inexplicable from below 
are perfectly plain. How so many houses happened 
to be so queerly tw.isted, for instance, as if the water 
had a whirling instead of a straight motion, was made 
perfectly clear. 

The town was built in an almost equilateral triangle, 
with one angle pointed squarely up the Conemaugh 
Valley to the east, from which the flood came. At the 
northerly angle was the junction of the Conemaugh 
and Stony creeks. The Southern angle pointed up 
the Stony Creek Valley. Now about one-half of the 
triangle, formerly densely covered with buildings, is 
swept as clean as a platter, except for three or four 
big brick buildings that stand near the angle which 
points up the Conemaugh. 

Course of the Flood. 

The course of the flood from the exact point where 
it issued from the Conemaugh Valley to were it disap- 

(288) 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 289 

peared below in a turn in the river and above by- 
spreading itself over the flat district of five or six 
miles, is clearly defined. The whole body of water is- 
sued straight from the valley in a solid wave and tore 
across the villaofe of Woodvale and so on to the busi- 
ness part of Johnstown at the lower part of the trian- 
gle. Here a cluster of solid brick blocks, aided by the 
conformation of the land, evidently divided the stream. 
The greater part turned to the north, swept up the 
brick block and then mixed with the ruins of the vil- 
laofes above down to the stone arch bridg-e. The 
other stream shot across the triangle, was turned 
southward by the bluffs and went up the valley of 
Stony Creek. The stone arch bridge in the mean- 
time acted as a dam and turned part of the current 
back toward the south, where it finished the work oi 
the triangle, turning again to the northward and back 
to the stone arch bridge. The stream that went up 
Stony Creek was turned back by the rising ground 
and then was reinforced by the back water from the 
bridge again and started south, where it reached a 
mile and a half and spent its force on a little settle- 
ment called Grubbtown. 

Work of the Water. 
The frequent turning of this stream, forced against' 
the buildings and then the bluffs, gave it a regular 
whirling motion from right to left and made a tremen- 
dous eddy, whose centrifugal force twisted everything 
it touched. This accounts for the comparatively 
narrow path of the flood through the southern part of 
19 



290 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

the town, where its course through the thickly clus- 
tered frame dwelHng houses is as plain as a highway. 
The force of the stream diminished gradually as it 
went south, for at the place where the currents sepa- 
rated every building is ground to pieces and carried 
away, and at the end the houses were only turned 
a little on their foundations. In the middle of the 
course they are turned over on their sides or upside 
down. Further down they are not single, but great 
heaps of ground lumber that look like nothing so much 
as enormous pith balls. 

To the north the work of the waters is of a different 
sort. It picked up everything except the big buildings 
that divided the current and piled the fragments down 
about the stone bridge or swept them over and soon 
down the river for miles. This left the great yellow, 
sandy and barren plain so often spoken of in the 
despatches where stood the best buildings in Johns- 
town — the opera house, the big hotel, many wholesale 
warehouses, shops and the finest residences. In this 
plain there are now only the Baltimore and Ohio Rail- 
road train, a schoolhouse, the Morrell Company's 
stores and an adjoining warehouse and the few build- 
ings at the point of the triangle. One big residence, 
badly shattered, is also standing. 

Houses Changed Base. 

These structures do not relieve the shocking picture 
of ruin spread out below the mountain, but by con- 
trast making it more striking. That part of the town 
to the south where the flood tore the narrow path 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 291 

there used to be a separate village which was called 
Kernville. It is now known as the South Side. 
Some of the queerest sights of the wreck are there, 
though few persons have gone to see them. Many of 
the houses that are there, scattered helter skelter, 
thrown on their sides and standing on their roofs, 
were never in that neighborhood nor anywhere near 
it before. They came down on the breast of the 
wave from as far up as Franklin, were carried safely 
by the factories and the bridges, by the big buildings 
at the dividing line, up and down on the flood and 
finally settled in their new resting places little injured. 
A row of them, packed closely together and every one 
tipped over at about the same angle, is only one of 
the queer freaks the water played. 

I got into one of these houses in my walk through 
the town to-day. The lower story had been filled with 
water, and everything in it had been torn out. The 
carpet had been split into strips on the floor by the 
isheer force of the rushing tide. Heaps of mud stood 
in the corners. There was not a vestige of furniture. 
The walls dripped with moisture. The ceiling was 
gone, the windows were out, and the cold rain blew in 
and the only thing that was left intact was one of those 
worked worsted mottoes that you always expect to find 
in the homes of working people. It still hung to the 
wall, and though much awry the glass and frame were 
unbroken. The motto looked grimly and sadly sar- 
castic. It was : — 

'' There is no place like home." 



292 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

A melancholy wreck of a home that motto looked 
down upon. 

A Tree in a House. 

I saw a wagon In the middle of a side street stick- 
ing tongue, and all, straight up Into the air, resting on 
its tall -board, with the hind wheels almost completely 
buried in the mud. I saw a house standing exactly 
in the middle of Napoleon street, the side stove in by 
crashinor ag-ainst some other house and in the hole the 
coffin of its owner was placed. Some scholar's library 
had been strewn over the street in the last stage of 
the flood, for there was a trail of good books left half 
sticking in the mud and reaching for over a block. 
One house had been lifted over two others in some 
mysterious way and then had settled down between 
them and there it stuck, high up in the air, so its 
former occupants might have got into It again with 
ladders. 

Down at the lower end of the course of the stream, 
where its force 'vC-as greater, there was a house lying 
on one corner and held there by being fastened in the 
deep mud. Through its side the trunk of a tree had 
been driven like a lance, and there it stayed sticking 
out straight in the air. In the muck was the case and 
key board of a square piano, and far down the river, 
near the debris about the stone bridge, were Its legs. 
An upright piano, with all its inside apparatus cleanly 
taken out, stood straight up a little way off. What 
was once a set of costly furniture was strewn all about 
it, and the house that contained It was nowhere. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 293 

The remarkable stories that have been told about 
people floating a mile up the river and then back two 
or three times are easily credible after seeing the evi- 
dences of the strange course the flood took in this 
part of the town. People who stood near the ruins of 
Poplar Bridge saw four women on a roof float up on 
the stream, turn a short distance above and come back 
and go past again and once more return. Then they 
went far down on the current to the lower part of the 
town and were rescued as they passed the second 
story window of a school house. A man who was 
imprisoned in the attic of his house put his wife and 
two children on a roof that was eddying past and 
stayed behind to die alone. They floated up the 
stream and then back and got upon the roof of the 
very house they had left, and the whole family was saved. 

At Grubbtown there is a house that came all the 
way from Woodvale. On it was a man who lived 
near Grubbtown, but was working at Woodvale when 
the flood came. He was carried right past his own 
house and coolly told the people at the bridge to bid 
his wife good-bye for him. The house passed the 
bridge three times, the man carrying on a conversa- 
tion with the people on shore and giving directions 
for his burial if his body should be found. The third 
time the house went up it grounded at Grubbtown, 
and in an hour or two the man was safe at home. 
Three girls who went by on a roof crawled into the 
branches of a tree and had to stay there all night 
before they could make any one understand where 



294 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

they were. At one time scores of floating houses 
were wedged in together near the ruins of Poplar 
street bridge. Four brave men went out from the 
shore, and, stepping from house roof to house roof, 
brought in twelve women and children. 

starvation Overcomes Modesty. 

Some women crawled from roofs into the attics of 
houses. In their struggles with the flood most of 
their clothes had been torn from them, and rather than 
appear on the streets they stayed where they were 
until hunger forced them to shout out of the windows 
for help. At this stage of the flood more persons 
were lost by being crushed to death than by drowning. 
As they floated by on roofs or doors the toppling 
houses fell over upon them and killed them. 
Nineveli was Spared. ^ 

The valley of death, twenty-three miles long, prac- 
tically ends at Nineveh. It begins at Woodvale, where 
the dam broke, and for the entire distance to this point 
the mountains make a canyon — a water trap, from 
which escape was impossible. The first intimation this 
city had of the impending destruction was at noon on 
Friday, when Station Agent Nunamaker got this des- 
patch : — 

"We just received word from South Fork that 
water is coming over dam at Conemaugh Lake, and is 
liable to burst at any moment. Notify people to look 
out." 

"J. C. Waukemshaw, 
•* Despatcher at Conemaugh." 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 295 

Nunamaker started on a dead run to the water 
front, along which most of the houses are situated, 
cryingr : — 

*' The dam is breaking. Run for your hves !" 

Every spring, the station agent tells me, there have 
been a score of such alarms, and when the people 
heard Nunamaker they laughed and called him an old 
fogy for his pains. They had run too often to the 
mountains to escape some imaginary flood to be 
scared by anything less than the actual din of the tor- 
rent in their ears. Two hours and a half later a de- 
spatch came saying that the dam had indeed broken. 

Again the station agent went on a trot to the res- 
idential part of the town. That same despatch had 
gone thundering down the whole valley. Johnstown 
heard the news and so did Conemaugh. No one be- 
lieved it. It was what they called "a chestnut." But 
the cry had put the people a little on the alert. One 
hour after the despatch came the first warning note of 
the disaster. Mr. Nunamaker tells me that it took 
really more than that time for the head of the leaping 
cataract to travel the twenty-three miles. If that is so 
the people of Johnstown must have had half an hour's 
warning at least, for Johnstown is half way between 
here and the fatal dam. 

Awi'ul Scenes. 

Nineveh is very flat on the river side where the peo- 
ple live, though, fortunately, the main force of the cur- 
rent was not directed on this side of the stream. In a 
second the river rose two feet at a jump. It then 



296 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

reared up like a thing of life, then it steadily rose 
inches at a time, flooding the whole town. But the 
people had had warning and saved themselves. Pitiful 
cries were heard soon from the river. People were 
floating down on barrels, roofs, beds, anything that 
was handy. There were pitiful shrieks from despair- 
ing women. The people of Nineveh could do nothing. 
No boat could have stemmed the cataract. During 
the night there were shrieks heard from the flooded 
meadows. Next morning at nine o'clock the flood 
had fallen three feet. Bodies could be seen on the 
trees by the Nineveh people, who stayed up all night 
in the hope of being able to do some act of hu- 
manity. 

The Living and the Dead. 

Only twenty-five were taken alive from the trees 
and drift on this side. Across the stream a score 
were secured and forty-seven corpses taken out. 
This, with the 200 corpses here, makes a total of 300 
people who are known to have come down to this 
point. There are perhaps a hundred and fifty bodies 
within a mile. Only a few were actually taken from 
the river bed. They sank in deep water. It is only 
when they have swollen by the eflect of the water that 
they rise to the surface. Most of those recovered 
were found almost on dry land or buried in drift. 
There are tons of wood, furniture, trees, trunks, and 
everything that is ever likely to float in a river, that 
must be " dug over." It will be work of the hardest 
kind to get at the remaining corpses. I went over 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 297 

the whole ground along the river bank between here 
and Johnstown to-day. 

The Force of the Flood. 

The trees on the banks were levelled as if by bat- 
tering rams, telegraph poles were snapped off as a 
boy breaks a sugar stick, and parts of the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad track were wrenched, torn and de- 
stroyed. 

Jerry McNeilly, of this place, says he was at the 
Johnstown station when the flood came down, preceded 
by a sort of cloud or fog. He saw people smoking at 
their windows up to the last moment, and even wheq 
the water flooded their floors they laughed and seemed 
to think that the river had risen a few feet and that 
was all. Jerry, however, ran to the hills and saved 
himself while the water rose and did its awful work. 
Some houses were bowled over like ninepins. Some 
floated to the surface and started with the flood ; others 
stood their ground and were submerged inch by inch, 
the occupants climbing from story to story, from the 
top story to the roof, only to be swept away from their 
foothold sooner or later. 

The Dam's History. 

I asked a gathering of men here in what light they 
had been accustomed to look upon the dam. They 
say that from the time it was built, somewhere about 
1 83 1, by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to col- 
lect water for the canals, it has been the ' * bogie " of 
the district. Babies were frightened when naughty by 
being told the dam would break. Time and time again 



298 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

the people of Nineveh have risen from their beds in 
the night and perched upon the mountains through 
fear. A body of water seven miles or more long, from 
eighty to one hundred and twenty feet deep, and 
about a mile wide, was indeed something to be 
dreaded. This lake had a circumference of about 
eighteen miles, which gives some idea of the volume 
of water that menaced the population. The dam was 
thick enough for two carriages to drive abreast on its 
top, but the people always doubted the stability of that 
pile of masonry and earth. 

Morrellville was for a few days in a state of starva- 
tion, but Sheridan, Sang Hollow and this town are in 
no distress. kA'^ 

Nineveh has lost no life, although wild rumors said 
it had. Though the damage to property is very great, 
the Huns have been kept away, and robbers and 
marauders find nothing to tempt them. 
What '* Chal" Dick Saw. 

"I'll kill the first man that dares to cross the 
bridge." 

"Chal" Dick, lawyer, burgess and deputy sheriff 
and sportsman, sat upon his horse with a Winchester 
rifle across his saddle and a thousand or two of fiends 
dancing a war dance in his eyes. Down in Johnstown 
proper they think "Chal" Dick is either drunk or 
crazy. Two newspaper men bunked with him last 
night and found he was not afflicted in either sense. 
He is the only recognized head in the borough of 
Kernville, where every man, woman and child know 
him as " Chal," and greet him as he passes by. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 299 

"Yes," he said to me last night, ''I saw it all. My 
house was on Somerset street. On Thursday night it 
rained very hard. My wife woke me and called my 
attention to the way the water was coming down. I 
said nothing, but I got up about five o'clock and took 
a look around. In a little while Stony Creek had 
risen three feet. I then knew that we were going to 
have a flood, but I did not apprehend any danger. 
The water soon flooded the streets, and boards and 
logs began coming down. 

Sport Before Sorrow. 

"A lot of us turned in to have some sport. I gave 
my watch and what money I had to a neighbor and 
began riding logs down the stream. I had lots of 
company. Old men acted like boys, and shouted and 
shouted and splashed about in the water like mad. 
Finally the water began to rise so rapidly that I be- 
came alarmed. I went home and told my wife that it 
was full time to get out. She was somewhat incredu- 
lous, but I made her get ready, and we took the chil- 
dren and we went to the house of Mr. Bergman, on 
Napoleon street, just on the rise of Kernville. I got 
wet from head to foot fooling in the water, and when I 
got to Bergman's I took a chill. I undressed and 
went to bed and fell asleep. The first thing I knew I 
was pulled out of bed on to the floor, by Mr. Berg- 
man, who yelled, ' the dam has burst' I got up, 
pulled on my pantaloons and rushed down stairs. I 
got my youngest child and told my wife to follow with 
the two others. This time the water was three feet in 



300 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

the house and rising rapidly. We waded up to our 
waists out through it, up the hill, far beyond the reach 
of dansfer. 

A Stupendous Sight. 

"From the time I left Bergman's till I stopped is a 
blank. I remember nothing. I turned and looked, 
and may my eyes never rest on another such sight. 
The water was above the houses from the direction of 
the railroad bridge. There came a wave that appeared 
to be about twelve feet high. It was perpendicular in 
its face and moved in a mist. I have heard them speak 
of the death mist, but I then first appreciated what the 
phrase meant. It came on up Stony Creek carrying 
on itS;.surface house after house and moving along" 
faster than any horse could go. In the water there 
bobbed up and down and twisted and twirled the 
heads of people making ripples after the manner of 
shot dropped into the water. The wave struck houses 
not yet submerged and cut them down. The frames 
rose to the surface, but the bricks, of course, were 
lost to sight. When the force of the water spent itself 
and began retracing its course, then the awfulness of 
the scene increased in intensity. I have a little nerve, 
but my heart broke at the sight. Houses, going and 
coming, crashed up against each other and began 
grinding each other to pieces. The buildings creaked 
and groaned as they let go their fastenings and fairly 
melted. 

"At the windows of the dwellings there appeared 
the faces of people equally as ill-fated as the rest. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 301 

God forbid that I should ever again look upon such 
intensity of anguish. Oh, how white and horror- 
stricken those faces were, and such appeals for help 
that could not come. The woman wrung their hands 
in their despair and prayed aloud for deliverance. 
Down stream went houses and people at the rate of 
twenty-five miles an hour and stopped, a conglomerate 
mass, at the stone abutment of the railroad bridge. 
The first buildings that struck the bridge took fire, 
and those that came after were swept into a sea of 
flame. I thought I had already witnessed the greatest 
possible climax of anguish, but the scene that followed 
exceeded in awfulness anything I had before looked 
upon. The flames grew, hundreds of people ^ were 
wedged in the driftwood and imprisoned in the 
houses. Rapidly the fire approached them, and then 
they began to cry for aid, and hundreds of others stood 
on the bank, powerless to extend a single comfort. 
Judgment Day. 
" As the fire licked up house after house and pile after 
pile, I could see men and women bid each other good- 
by, and fathers and mothers kiss their children. The 
flames swallowed them up and hid them from my viesv, 
but I could hear their shrieks as they roasted alive. 
The shrieks mellowed into groans, and the groans into 
silence, only to be followed by more shrieks, more 
groans and more silence, as the fire caught up and 
destroyed its victims. Heavens ! but I was glad when 
the end came. My only anxiety was to have it come 
quickly, and I prayed that it might come, oh ! so 



302 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

quick ! It was a splendid realization of the judgment 

day. It was a magnificent realization of the impotency 

of man in a battle with such a combination of fire and 

flood." 

Some Have Cause for Joy. 

In the midst of the confusion of the disaster and the 
strain of excitement which followed it was but natu- 
ral that every one who could not readily be found was 
reported dead. Amid the throng of mourners now an 
occasional soul is made happy by finding that some 
loved one has escaped death. To-day a few of the 
living had time to notify their friends throughout the 
country of their safety. 

General Lew Wallace, now at West Point, tele- 
graphed President Harrison, in response to an inquiry 
last night, that his wife was " coming out of the great 
calamity at Johnstown safe." Several reports have 
been sent out from Johnstown, one as late as last 
night, to the effect that Mrs. Wallace was believed to 
be among the victims of the disaster. Private Secre- 
tary Halford received a telegram this afternoon from 
his wife at Altoona, announcing that Mrs. Lew 
Wallace was with her and safe. 

Did Not liose Their Presence of Mind. 

A dispatch from Carthage, 111., says: — "Mrs. M.J. 
Smith, a traveling saleslady for a book concern in 
New York city, was at Johnstown at the time of the 
flood and was swept away with others. Her brothers, 
Lieutenant P. and James McKee, received the follow- 
ing telegram at Carthage yesterday from Johnstown : 



THE JOriNSTOWN HORROR. 303 

' . r^ijapcid with my life on housetop ; am all right. 

" M. J. Smith.' 

"The lady is well known in this county." 
Rich Made Poor. 

John Kelly, the prominent Odd Fellow of Cone- 
naugh, who was supposed to be lost, escaped with his 
entire family, though his house and store were swept 
down the river. 

John Rowley, who stands high among the Masons 
and Odd Fellows, tells me that out of ^65,000 worth 
of property which he could call his own on Friday last 
he found just two bricks on the site of his residence 
this morning. He counts himself wealthy, however, 
in the possession of his wife and children who were all 
saved. His wife, who was very ill, was dragged 
through the water in her nightclothes. She is now in 
a critical condition, but has the best of medical attend- 
ance and may pull through. 

In a frame house which stood at No. 121 Union 
street, Johnstown, were Mrs. O. W. Byrose, her 
daughters Elsie, Bessie and Emma, and sons Samuel 
and Ray. When the flood struck the house they ran 
to the attic. The house was washed from its founda- 
tion and carried with the rushing waters. Mrs. Byrose 
and her children then clung to each other, expecting 
every minute to meet death. As the house was borne 
along the chimney fell and crashed through the floors, 
md the bricks were strewn along the course of the 
river. The house was caught in the jam and held 
about two hundred feet above the bridge and one hun- 



304 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

dred and fifty feet from the shore. The terrified in- 
mates did not lose all presence ©f mind, and they made 
their escape to the hole made by the fallen chimney. 
They were seen by those on shore, and after much 
diflficulty each was rescued. A few minutes later the 
house caught fire from the burning buildings, and was 
soon consumed. 

Swept from His Side. 
At ten o'clock this morning an old gray bearded 
man stood amid the blackened logs and ashes through 
which the polluted water of the Conemaugh made its 
way, wringing his hands and moaning in a way that 
brought tears to the eyes of all about him. He was 
W. J. Gilmore, whose residence had stood at the cor- 
ner of Conemaugh and Main streets. Being on low 
ground the house was flooded by the first rush of 
water and the family, consisting of Mr. Gilmore, his 
brother Abraham, his wife, four children and mother- 
in-law, ran to the second story, where they were 
joined by Frances, the little daughter of Samuel 
Fields, and Grandmother Maria Prosser. When the 
torrent from South Fork rushed through the town the 
side of the house was torn out and the water poured 
into the second floor. Mr. Gilmore scrambled upon 
some floating debris, and his brother attempted to 
pass the women and children out to him. Before he 
could do so, however, the building sank and Mr. Gil- 
more' s family was swept from his side. His brother 
disappeared for a moment under the water, but came 
to the surface and was hauled upon the root. The 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 305 

brothers then strove frantically to tear a hole in the 
roof of the house with their bare hands, but their 
efforts were, of course, unavailing, and they were 
soon strug-gling for their own lives in the wreck at the 
viaduct. Both finally reached the shore. The body 
of Mrs. Gilmore, when taken from the ruins this 
morning, was but little mutilated, although her body 
was bloated by the water. Two of the children had 
been almost burned to cinders, their arms and legs 
alone being something like their original shape. 
Statue of the Virgin. 
St. Mary's German Catholic Church, which is badly 
wrecked, was temporarily used as a morgue, but a sin- 
gular circumstance connected with the wrecking having 
been noticed, the duty of becoming a receptacle for the 
dead is transferred to the Church of St. Columba. 
The windows of St. Mary's are all destroyed. The 
floor for one-third of its extent on St. Mar^^'s side is 
torn up to the chancel rail in one piece by the water 
and raised toward the wall. One-half the chancel rait 
is gone, the mud is eighteen inches deep on the floor,, 
St. Joseph's altar is displaced and the statue gone.. 
The main altar, with its furniture for Easter, is covered 
with mud, and some fine potted flowers are destroyed.. 
Nearly all the other ornaments are in place, even to 
the candlesticks. Strange to relate, the statue of the 
Virgin in her attire is unsoiled ; the white vestments 
with silken embroidery are untarnished. This dis- 
covery led to the change of morgue. The matter 
being bruited abroad the desolated women of Cambria 
20 



306 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

and Johnstown, as well as those who had not been suf- 
ferers from the flood, visited the church, and with most 
affecting devoutness adored the shrine. Some men 
also were among the devout, and not one of those who 
offered their prayers but did it in tears. For several 
hours this continued to be the wonder of the parish- 
ioners of the Catholic churches. 

The entire family of Mr. Howe, the wealthiest man 
in Cambria, with some visitors from Pittsburgh 
and Ohio, were hurried to death by the collapse of 
their residence on that fatal Friday night. 

In the rubbish heaped high on the shore near the 
stone arch bridge is a flat freight car banged and 
shattered and with a hole stove in its side. One of 
the workmen who were examining the debris to-day 
got into the car and found a framed and glazed picture 
of the Saviour. It was resting against the side of the 
car, right side up* Neither frame nor glass were 
injured. When this incident got noised about among 
the workmen they dropped their pickaxes and ran to 
look at the wonderful sight with their hats off. 
Saved His Mother and Sister. 

A man who came up from Lockport to-day told 
this : — " On the roof of a house were a young man, 
his mother and a young girl apparently his sister. As 
they passed the Lockport bridge, where the youth hung 
in an eddy for a moment, the men on the bridge 
threw them a rope. The young man on the house 
caught and tried to make it fast around his mother 
and then around his sister. They were afraid to use 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 30Y 

it or they were unwilling to leave him, for they would 
not take the rope. They tried to make him take it, 
but he threw it away and stayed on the roof with them. 
The house was swept onward and in another moment 
was lodged against a tree. The youth seized his 
mother and sister and placed them in safety among 
the branches. The next instant the house started 
again. The young man's foot slipped. He fell into 
the water and was not seen again. 

Where Death ILay in Wait. 

A great deal has been written and published about 
the terrible disaster, but in all the accounts nothing 
has been said about South Fork, where in proportion 
to its size as much damage has been done as at any 
other point. 

For the purpose of ascertaining how the place 
looked which in the annals of history will always be 
referred to as the starting point of this great calamity, 
I came here from Johnstown. I left on Monday 
morning at half-past six, and being unable to secure a 
conveyance of any character was compelled to walk 
the entire distance. Thinking the people of Johns- 
town knew whereof they spoke, I started over the 
Edensburg turnpike and tramped, as a result, six 
more miles than was absolutely necessary. After I 
left Johnstown it began raining and continued until I 
reached South Fork. 

Two miles out from Johnstown I passed the 
Altoona Relief Committee in carriages, with their sup- 
ply train following, and from that until I reached Fair 



308 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

View, where I turned off toward the Conemaugh 
Hver, it was a continuous line of vehicles of all kinds, 
some containing supplies, others passengers, many of 
whom were ladies. I followed a cow-path along the 
mountain until I reached Mineral Point. Here is 
where the flood did its first bad work after leaving 
South Fork. There had been thirty-three dwelling 
houses, a store and a large sawmill in the village, and 
in less than one minute after the flood struck the head 
of the place there were twenty-nine of these buildings 
wiped out ; and so sudden had been the coming of the 
water that but a few of the residents succeeded in get- 
ting away. 

As a Boy w^ould Marbles. 

Jacob Kohler, one of the residents of the place, said 
he had received a telegram stating that the flood was 
coming, but paid no attention to it as they did not un- 
derstand its significance. "I saw it coming," he said, 
" with the water reaching a height of at least twenty- 
five feet, tearing trees up by the roots and dashing big 
rocks about as a boy would marbles. I hardly had 
time to grab a child and run for the hills when it was 
upon us, and in less time than it takes for me to tell 
it our village was entirely wiped out and the inhabi- 
tants were struggling in the water and were soon out 
of sight. I never want to see such a sight again." 

From Mineral Point another cow-path was taken 
over the mountains. I came just below the viaduct 
within about one mile of South Fork, and here the 
work of destruction had been as complete as it was 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 309 

possible for it to be. The entire road-bed of the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad had been washed away. 

At this point a freight train had been caught and 
all the men on it perished, but the names could not be 
learned. The engine was turned completely upside 
down and the box cars were lifted off the track and 
carried two hundred feet to the side of the hill. Fif- 
teen of them are there with the trucks, about one 
hundred feet from the old road-bed, and turned com- 
pletely upside down. 

Another freight train just ahead of it was also swept 
away in the same manner, all excepting two cars and 
the engine. One of the cars was loaded with two 
heavy boilers from the works of James Witherow, 
Newcastle. 

Rails Twisted Double. 

Coming in to South Fork the work of destruction 
on the railroad was found to be even greater, the rails 
being almost bent double. The large iron bridge 
over the river at this point is gone, as is also one of 
the piers. The lower portion of this place is com- 
pletely wiped out, and two men were lost. This is 
all the loss of life here, excepting two Italians who 
were working at the lake proper. The loss in indi- 
vidual property to the people of this place will reach 
;^75,ooo, and at Mineral Point ^^50,000. 

For the purpose of seeing how the lake looked 
after all the water was out of it, a trip was taken to it, 
fully three miles distant. The driveway around it is 



310 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

fully thirty-five feet wide, and that was the width at 
the point of the dam where the break occu'^red. 
Like a Thunderbolt. 

Imagine, if ycu can, a solid piece of ground, thirty- 
five feet wide and over one hundred feet high, and 
then, again, that a space of two hundred feet is cut 
out of it, through which is rushing over seven hundred 
acres of water, and you can have only a faint concep- 
tion of the terrible force of the blow that came upon 
the people of this vicinity like a clap of thunder out 
of a clear sky. It was irresistible in its power and 
carried everything before it. After seeing the lake 
and the opening through the dam it can be readily 
understood how that outbreak came to be so destruc- 
tive in its character. 

The lake had been leaking, and a couple of Italians 

were at work just over the point where the break 

occurred, and in an instant, without warning, it gave 

way, and they were down in the whirling mass of water 

and were swept into eternity. The people of this 

place had been told by some of those who had been to 

the lake that it was leaking, but paid no attention any 

more than to send telegrams to Johnstown and Mineral 

Point. 

Here's Another Paul Revere. 

The first intimation the people had of the approach 

of the water was from the seventeen-year-old son of 

John Baker. He was on the road on horseback and 

noticed the water coming out of a cavity about five 

feet in diameter, and not waiting to see any more he 




RESCUES AT THE SIGNAL TOWER. 



(311) 



312 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

put spurs to his horse and dashed for the town at 
breakneck speed. Some of the people of this place 
saw him coming at great speed, waving his hat, and 
knowing something was wrong at once gave the 
alarm, and grabbing their children started for the high 
parts. When he arrived almost at Railroad street, his 
own home, the water was already in the roadway, and 
in less than one minute its whole bulk was coming, 
twisting trees and rolling rocks before it. 

In just eight minutes from the time he first saw it 
the water had carried away the bridge and was on its 
career of death and destruction. A train of Pullman 
cars for the East, due at South Fork at 2.55, was 
standing on the track on the west side of the bridge 
waiting to pull into the station. At first the engineer 
paid no attention to the wild gesticulations of the sta- 
tion agent, but finally started out, pulling slowly into 
the station, and not one moment too soon, for had he 
remained where he was a minute longer all would 
have been swept away. 

Thrilliug^ Hscapes. 

A local freight train with a passenger coach 
attached, standing on the east side of the track, was 
compelled to run into the rear end of the passenger 
train so as to get out of the way of the flood. A young 
man who was on the rear end of the train grabbed a 
young lady who was floating by and thus saved her 
life. The house of an old man, eighty-two years of 
age, was caught in the whirlpool, and he and his aged 
wife climbed on the roof for safety. They were float- 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 313 

Ing down the railroad track to certain death, when 
their son-in-law, from the roof of the Pennsylvania 
Railroad station-house, pulled them off and saved their 
lives as the house was dashed to pieces. 

Mr. Brown, a resident of this place, said: "I was 
just about opposite the mouth of the lake when it 
broke. When I first saw it the water was dashing over 
the top of the road just where it broke about a foot 
high, and not eight or ten feet, as has been stated, and 
I told Mr. Fisher, who lived there, that he had better 
get his family out at once, which he did, going to the 
hillside, and it was lucky for him that he did, because in 
a half minute after it broke his home was wiped away." 
No Safety Outlet. 

Mr. Burnett, who was born and raised a mile from 
the lake, and is now a resident of Hazelwood, and who 
was at South Fork, said: "When the State owned 
this lake they had a tower over the portion that gave 
way and a number of pipes by which they were 
enabled to drive off the surplus water, and had the 
present owners had an arrangement of that kind this 
accident would not have occurred. The only outlet 
there was for the water was a small waterw^ay around 
to the right of the lake, which is totally inadequate. 
The people of this valley have always been afraid of 
this thing, and now that it is here it shows that they 
had every reason for their fears." 

In company with Mr. Burnett I walked all over the 
place, and am free to confess that it looks strong, but 
experience shows the contrary. 



314 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR, 

Mr. Moore, who has done nearly all the hauling for 
the people who lived at the lake in summer, said : — 
" About eight years ago this dam broke, but there was 
not as much water in it as now, and when it broke 
they were working at it and hauled cart load after cart 
load of dirt, stone and logs, and finally about ten tons 
of hay, and by that means any further damage was 
prevented. That was the time when they should have 
put forth strenuous efforts to have that part strength- 
ened where the break occurred. This lake is about 
three miles long and about a mile wide and fully 
ninety feet deep, and of course when an opening of 
any kind was forced it was impossible to stop it. 
Thirsting- for Vengeance. v,- 

"The indignation here against the people who owned 
that place is intense. I was afraid that if the people 
here were to hear that you were from Pittsburgh they 
would jump to the conclusion that you were connected 
with the association, and I was afraid they would pull 
you from the carriage and kill you. That is the feel- 
ing that predominates here, and we all believe justly." 

Mr. Ferguson, of the firm of J. P. Stevenson & Co., 
said: 'Tt is a terrible affair, and shows the absolute 
necessity of people not fooling with matters of that 
kind. We sent telegrams to Mineral Point, Johns- 
town and Conemaugh, notifying them that the lake 
was leaking and the water rising and we were liable 
to have trouble, and two minutes before the flood 
reached here a telegram was sent to Mineral Point 
that the dam had broken. But you see for the past 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 315 

five years ^o many alarms of that kind have been sent 
that the people have not believed them." 
Broke Forty-one Years Ago. 

Mrs. McDonald, who lives between Johnstown and 
South Fork, said : "I am an old woman and lived in 
Johnstown forty-two year ago, when there but two or 
three houses here. I have always contended, ever since 
this club of dudes took charge of this place, that it 
would end in a terrible loss of life. It broke about 
forty-one years ago, and I was in my house washing 
and it actually took my tub away and I only saved my- 
self after a desperate struggle. At that time there 
were no lives lost. On Friday night, when it was rain- 
ing so hard, I told my son not to go near Johnstown, 
as it was sure, from the telegrams I heard of, which 
had come in the afternoon, that there would be a ter- 
rible disaster. 

I was told that when the viaduct went a loud report 
was heard just as a couple of freight cars were dashing 
against it, and the people say that they were loaded 
with dynamite. 

The Pennsylvania Railroad officials are rushing in 
all the men at this point possible to repair the road 
and are working day and night, having electric lights 
all along the road ; but with all of that it looks as 
though it will be utterly impossible to have even a 
single track ready for business before ten days or two 
weeks, as there is not the slightest vestige of a railroad 
track to be seen. The railroad people around here 
are of the opinion that it will take as long as that. 



316 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

The railroad men say that it is the most complete 

destruction of the kind that they have ever witnessed. 

Wealth Dome Away. 

I had an interview to-night with Colonel James A. 
McMillan, the consulting- director and principal owner 
of the Cambria Iron Works. He said : — 

"What will be the total loss sustained by the Cam- 
bria Company is rather hard to stite with perfect 
accuracy just yet, but from the examinations already 
made of our works I would place our loss at from 
^3,000,000 to ^4,000,000. That includes, of course, 
the loss of our Gautier Steel Department, above 
Johnstown, which is completely swept away. 

" Day before yesterday I took the liberty of deter- 
mining the action which the company will pursue in 
the matter of reconstruction and repairs. I accord- 
ingly telegraphed for Mr. Lockhart, the secretary of 
the company. He arrived here to-day and said to 
me : * McMillan, I'm glad to see you intend to stand 
by the company and push the work of repairs at once.' 

" I think his words voice the sentiment of all the 
stockholders of the company. 

Reconstruction Beg-un. 

" All day we have had at least eight hundred men 
cleaning away the debris about our works, and we have 
made so much progress that you can say we will have 
our entire clerical force at work to-morrow evening. 
Our large pieces of machinery are uninjured, and we 
will have to send away for only the smaller pieces of 
our machines and smaller pipes, which compose an 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 317 

enormous system of pipe connections through the 
works. In from ten to twelve days we will have our 
works in operation, and I feel confident that we will 
be making rails at our works inside of fifty days. As 
we employ about five thousand men, I think our renewal 
of operations will give the people more encourage- 
ment than can be imagined. Besides, we have half 
the amount of cash needed on deposit in our local 
bank he^e, which was brought over by the Adams Ex- 
press Company on Monday to pay our men. This 
will be paid them as soon as we can get access to the 
bank. 

"Our immediate work of reconstruction and repair 
will, of course, be confined to the company's Cambria 
iron works proper, and not extended to the Gautier 
steel works above." 

Twelve MOKons More. • 

The Colonel was then asked his estimate of the 
total loss sustained by the towns of Mineral Point, 
Franklin borough, Woodvale, Conemaugh, Johnstown, 
Cambria City, Coopersdale and Morrellville. He 
said : 

"I should place it at nothing lower than ^12,000,- 
000, besides the loss sustained by our company. That 
is only an estimate, but when you take the different 
towns as they were before the flood, and knowing 
them as I do, you could not fail to see that this is a 
very reasonable estimate of the loss." 

As to the South Fork dam, he said: "For the 
present I don't care to be interviewed on that question 



318 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

as representing any one but myself. Personally, I 
have always considered it a dangerous trap, which 
was likely at any time to wipe us out. For the last 
ten years I have not hesitated to express this opinion 
in regard to the dam, and I guess it is pretty well 
understood that all of our leading citizens held similar 
view^. There is not a man in Johnstown who will 
deny that he has lived for years in constant dread of 
its bursting down on us." 

Fifteen Years to Recover. 

"What do you think will be the time required for 
the Conemaugh Valley to recover from the shock of 
the flood?" 

"At least fifteen years, and vigilant efforts will be 
required at that. I speak now from a financial stand- 
point. Of course we will never recover fully from the 
terrible losy of life which is now being revealed in its 
dreadful entirety. 

Survivors in Camp. 

There are two camps on the hillside to the north of 
Johnstown, and they are almost side by side. One is 
a camp for the living, for the most woebegone and 
unfortunate of the refugees from the Conemaugh 
Valley of the shadow of death, and the other is for the 
dead. The camp of the living is Camp Hastings and 
the ministering spirits are members of the Americus 
Republican Club of Pittsburgh. The camp for the 
dead is the new potters' field that was laid out on 
Monday for the bodies of unknown victims. The 
former is populous and stirring, but the latter has 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 319 

more mounds already than the other has living souls. 
The refugees are widely scattered ; some are in the 
hospital, some are packed as closely as the logs and 
dead bodies at the stone bridge in the houses yet 
tenable, and the rest are at Camp Hastings. 

In the despairing panic and confusion of Saturday 
the first thought that presented itself to those who 
were hurried in to give relief was to prepare shelter 
for the survivors. The camp has been in operation 
ever since, and will be for days and may be weeks 

to come. 

Gloomy Pictures of Despair, 

It looked desolate enough to-day after the soaking 
downpour of last night, and groups of shivering moth- 
res, with their little ones, stood around a smoky fire at 
either end of the streets. The members of the 
Americus Committee, for the time being cooks, wait- 
ers, grocery dealers and dry goods men, were in stri- 
king contrast to their usual appearance at home. 
Major W. Coffey, one of the refugees, who was 
washed seven miles down the Conemaugh, was acting 
as officer of the guard, and limped up and down on 
his wooden leg, which had been badly damaged by the 
flood. 

Palefaced women looked out through the flaps of 
tents on the scene, and the only object that seemed to 
be taking things easy was a lean, black dog, asleep in 
front of one of the fires. 

In one of the tents a baby was born last night. 
The mother, whose husband was lost^n the flood, was 



320 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

herself rescued by being drawn up on the roof of the 
Union Schoolhouse. One of the doctors of the Al- 
toona Relief Corps at the Cambria Hospital attended 
her, and mother and babe are doing better than thous- 
ands of the flood sufferers who are elsewhere. There 
are other babies in Camp Hastings, but none of 
them receive half of the attention from the people in 
the camp that is bestowed upon this little tot, whose 
life began just as so many lives were ended. The 
baby wilf probably be named Johnstown Camp 
O'Connor. 

The refugees who are living along the road get 
their supplies from the camp. They pour into the 
wretched city of tents in a steady stream, bearing- 
baskets and buckets of food. 

He Wanted Tobacco or NotMng". 

An old Irishman walked up to the tent early in 
the day. "Well, what can we do for you?" was 
asked. 

" Have yez any tobaccy?" 

" No, tobacco don't go here." 

" I want tobaccy or nothin'. This is no relief to a 
mon at all, at all." 

The aged refugee walked away in high dudgeon. 

Just down the row from the clothing tent are loca- 
ted two little girls, named Johnson, who lost both 
father and mother. They had a terrible experience in 
the flood, and were two of the forty- three people 
pulled in on the roof of the house of the late General 
Campbell and his two sons, James and Curt. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 321 

"How do you fare?" one of the little girls was 
asked. 

" Oh, very well, sir ; only we are afraid of catching 

the measles," she answered ; and with a grimace she 

tossed her head toward a tent on the other side and 

further up. A baby in the tent indicated has a slight 

attack of the measles, but is getting better, and is next 

door to a tent in which is a young woman shaking with 

the ague. 

A Multitude to be Fed. 

In the houses along the road above the camp are 
several hundreds of refuofees. In one of them are 
thirty or forty people rendered homeless by the flood. 
These are all supplied with food from the camp. Some 
idea of the number of people who have to be fed can be 
gathered from the fact that 350 pounds of coffee have 
been given out since yesterday. In the hills back of 
Cambria there are many, hundreds of survivors. Dr. 
Findley, of the Altoona Relief Corps, went there to- 
day and found that they were without a physician. 
One from Baltimore had been there, but had gone 
away. He found many people needing medical care, 
and they will be looked after from day to day. 

"Wherever we go," said one of the doctors yester- 
day, "we find that there is an alarming spread of 
pneumonia." Of the refugees at the Cambria Hos- 
pital but two have died. 

Bayonets in Control. 

The ruined cit}^ lies to night within a: girdle of steel 
— the bayonets of the 14th Regiment. The militia 

21 



322 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



has captured Johnstown and to-night over the desolate 
plain where the city proper stood, through the tower- 
ing wrecks and by the river passes, marches the patrol, 
crying **Halt" and challenging vagabonds, vandals 
and ghouls, who cross their path. General Hastings, 
being the highest officer in rank, is in command, and 
when the survivors of the flood awake to-m.orrow 
morning, when the weary pickets are relieved at sun- 
rise a brigade headquarters will be fully established on 




ENCAMPMENT OF RELIEF PARTIES. 

the slope of Prospect Hill overlooking the hundreds 
of white tents of the regiments that will lie down be- 
low by the German Catholic Church. 

First this afternoon arrived Governor Beaver's 
staff, mostly by way of Harper's Ferry on the Balti- 
more and Ohio. All the officers in brilliant uniform 
and trappings reported to General Hastings. They 
found their commander in a slouch hat, a rough-looking 
cutaway and rubber boots^ 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 328 

The 14th Regiment, reinforced this morning until it 
is now 600 strong, is still camped in freight cars 
beyond the depot, opposite the late city proper. Space 
is being rapidly cleared for its tents, however, over by 
the German Catholic Church, and near the ruins of 
the Irish Catholic Church, which was on fire when the 
deluge came. 

Early this morning the 14th Regiment went into 
service, but it was a volunteer service of two young 
officers and three privates when at noon they dragged 
gently from the rushing Conemaugh the body of a 
beautiful young girl. She was tenderly borne through 
the lines by regimental headquarters to the church 
house morgue, while the sentinels stood aside with 
their bayonets and the corporal ordered *' Halt ! " 
Guards were placed at the Johnstown stations and all 
the morgues. 

Marched out of Camp. 

During the day many people of questionable charac» 
ter, indeed all who were challenged and could not 
satisfactorily explain their business here, had a military 
escort to the city limits, where they were ordered not 
to return. Every now and then two of the National 
Guard could be seen marching along with a rough 
fellow between them to the post where such beings 
are made exiles from the scene of desolation. To- 
night the picket lines stretch from brigade headquar» 
ters down Prospect Hill past General Hastings' quar- 
ters even to the river. The patrol across the river is 
keeping sharp vigilanca in town. At the eastern end 



324 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

of the Pennsylvania Railroad's stone bridge you must 
stop and give the countersign. If you don't no man 
can answer for your safety. 

A Liieutenant's Disgrace. 

Down the Cambria Road, past which the dead of the 
River Conemaugh swept into Nineveh in awful num- 
bers, was another scene to-day — that of a young officer 
of the National Guard in full uniform and a poor 
deputy sheriff, who had lost home, wife, children and 
all, clinched like madmen and struggling for the 
former's revolver. If the officer of the Guard had 
won, there might have been a tragedy, for he was 
drunk. The homeless deputy sheriff with his wife and 
babies swept to death past the place where they strug- 
gled was sober and in the right. 

The officer of the National Guard came with his 
regiment into this valley of distress to protect survi- 
vors from ruffianism and maintain the peace and dig- 
nity of the State. The man with whom he fought for 
the weapon was Peter Fitzpatrick, almost crazy in his 
own woe, but singularly cool and self-possessed regard- 
ing the safety of those left living. 

A Man who liad Suffered. 

It was one o'clock this afternoon when I noticed on 
the Cambria road the young officer with his long mil- 
itary coat cut open leaning heavily for support upon 
two privates of Company G, Hawthorn and Stewart 
(boys). He was crying in a maudlin way, " You just 
take me to a place and I'll drink soft stuff." They 
entreated him to return at once to the regimental 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR.- 325 

quarters, even begged him, but he cast them aside and 
went staggering down the road to the Hne, where he 
met the grave-faced deputy face to face. The latter 
looked in the white of his eyes and said: '* You can't 
pass here, sir." 

"Can't pass here?" he cried, waving his arms. 
'* You challenge an officer ? Stand aside !" 

"You can't pass here," this time quietly, but 
firmly; "not while you're drunk." 

"Stand aside," yelled the Lieutenant. "Do you 
you know who I am ? You talk to an officer of the 
National Guard." 

"Yes ; and listen," said the man in front of him so 
impatiently that it hushed his antagonist's tirade; 'T 
talk to an 'officer' of the National Guard — I, who 
have lost my wife, my children and all in this flood no 
man has yet described ; we, who have seen our dead 
with their bodies mutilated and their fingers cut from 
their hands by dirty foreigners for a little gold, are not 
afraid to talk for what is right, even to an officer of 
the National Guard." 

A Bigr Man's Honest Rage. 

While he spoke another great, dark, stout man, who 
looked as if he had suffered, came up, and upon taking 
in the situation every vein in his forehead swelled pur- 
ple with rage. 

" You dirty cur," he cried to the officer ; "you dirty, 
drunken cur, if it was not for the sake of peace I'd 
lay you out where you stand." 

" Come on," yelled the Lieutenant, with an oath. 



326 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

The big man sent out a terrible blow that would 
have left the Lieutenant senseless had not one of the 
privates dashed in between, receiving part of it and 
warding it off. The Lieutenant got out of his military 
coat. The privates seized the big man and with 
another, who ran to the scene, held him back. The 
Lieutenant put his hand to his pistol pocket, the 
deputy Fitzpatrick seized him and the struggle for the 
weapon began. For a moment it was fierce and des- 
perate, then another private came to the deputy's 
assistance. The revolver was wrested from the 
drunken officer and he himself was pushed back pant- 
ing to the ground. 

The Victor wasi Mag^nanimous. 

Deputy Fitzpatrick seized the military coat he had 
thrown on the ground, and with it and the weapon 
started to the regimental headquarters. Then the pri- 
vates got around him and begged him, one of them 
with tears in his eyes, not to report their officer, say- 
ing that he was a good man when he was sober. He 
studied a long while, standing in the road, while the 
officer slunk away over the hill. Then he threw the 
disgraced uniform to them, and said : " Here, give 
them to him ; and, mind you, if he does not go at once 
to his quarters, I'll take him there, dead or alive." 
Sanitarians at Work. 

Dr. Benjamin Lee, secretary of the State Board of 
Health, has taken hold with a grip upon the handle. 
When he surveyed the ground to-day he found that 
there were no disinfectants in town, and no utensils in 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 327 

which to distribute them had there been any disinfect- 
ants, so he sent a squad across the river to the sup- 
ply train, below the viaduct, and had all the copperas 
and chloride of lime to be had carried across the 
bridges in buckets. He sent another squad hunting 
the ruins for utensils, and in the wreck of a general 
store on Main street they discovered pails, sprinkling 
pots and kettles. The copperas and chloride were 
promptly set heating in the kettles over the streets 
and in a short time a squad was out sprinkling the 
debris which chokes Main street almost to the house- 
tops for three squares. 

The reason of this was that a brief inspection had 
satisfied Dr. Lee that under the wreckage were piled 
the bodies of scores of dead horses. Meantime other 
men were at work collecting the bodies of other dead 
horses, which were hauled to the fire and with the aid 
of rosin burned to the number of sixty. A large 
number of dead horses were buried yesterday, but 
this course did not meet the State Board's approval 
and Dr. Lee has ordered their exhumation for 
burning. 

Dr. R. Lowrie Sibbett, of Carlisle, was made med- 
ical inspector and sent up through the boroughs up 
the river. To-morrow a house-to-house inspection 
will be made of the remaining and inhabited portion 
of the cities and boroughs. The overcrowding makes 
this necessary. 

"It will take weeks of unremitting labor and 
thousands of men," said Dr. Lee, "to remove the 



328 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

sources of danger to the public health which now 
exist. The principal danger to people living here is, 
of course, from the contamination of putrifying flesh. 
They have an excellent water-supply from the hills, 
but there is a very grave danger to the health of all 
the people who use the Allegheny river as a water- 
supply. It is in the debris above the viaduct, which is 
full of decomposing animal matter. Every ripple of 
water that passes through or under it carries the 
germs of possible disease with it." 

At the Schoolliouse Morg-we. 

Away from the devastation in the valley and the 
gloomy scenes along the river, on Prospect Hill, 
stands the schoolhouse, the morgue of the unidentified 
dead. People do not go there unless they are hunting 
for a friend or relative. They treat it as a pest house. 
They have seen enough white faces in the valley and 
the living feel like fleeing from the dead. 

This afternoon at sunset every desk in every class- 
room supported a cofiin. Each coffin was numbered 
and each lid turned to show the face within. On the 
blackboard in one of the rooms, between the pretty 
drawing and neat writing of the school children, was 
scrawled the bulletin "Hold No. '59' as long as 
possible ; supposed to be Mrs. Paulson, of Pitts- 
burgh." "But '59* wasn't Mrs. Paulson," said a 
little white-faced woman. "It is Miss Frances 
Wagner, of Market street, Johnstown." Her brother 
found her here. "Fifty-nine" has gone — one of the few 
identified to-day, and others had come to take its place. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 329 

Strongly appealing to the sympathies of even those 
looking for friends and relatives was the difference in 
the size of the coffins. There were some no larger 
than a violin case hidden below large boxes, telling of 
the unknown babies perished, and there were coffins 
of children of all years. On the blackboards were 
written such sentences as "Home sweet home;" 
** Peace on earth, good will toward men." For all 
the people who looked at their young faces knew, they 
might have stood by the coffin of the child who helped 
to write them. 

The bodies found each day are kept as long as pos- 
sible and then are sent av/ay for burial with their num- 
bers, where their names should be, on rough boards, 
their only tombstones. 

Just as a black storm-cloud was driving hard from 
the West over the slope of the hills yesterday the 
body of young Henry G. Rose, the district attorney 
of Cambria County, was lowered into a temporary 
grave beside unknown victims. Three people at- 
tended his burial — his father-in-law, James A. Lane, 
who saw him lost while he himself was struggling for 
life in their floating house ; the Rev. Dr. H. L. Chap- 
man, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Rev. 
L. Maguire. Dr. Chapman read the funeral services, 
and while he prayed the thunder rumbled and the 
cloud darkened the scene. The coffins are taken 
there in wagonloads, lowered quickly and hidden from 
sight. 

Miss Nina Speck, daughter of Rev. David Speck, 



330 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

pastor of the First United Brethren Church of Cham- 
bersburg, was in Johnstown visiting her brother last 
week and narrowly escaped death in the flood. 

She arrived to-day clad in nondescript clothing, 
which had been furnished by an old colored washer- 
woman and told the following story of the flood ; 

" Our house was in Kernville, a part of Johnstown, 
through which Stony Creek ran. Although we were 
a square from the creek, the backwater from the 
stream had flooded the streets in the morning and was 
up to our front porch. At 4 o'clock on Friday after- 
noon we were sitting on the front porch watching the 
flood, when we heard a roar as of a tornado or mighty 
conflagration. 

" We rushed upstairs and got out upon the bay- 
window. There an awful sight met our eyes. Down 
the Conemaugh Valley was advancing a mighty wall 
of flame and mist with a terrible roar. Before it were 
rolling houses and buildings of all kinds, tossing over 
and over. We thought it was a cyclone, the roar sound- 
ing like a tempest among forest trees. At first we could 
see no water at all, but back of the mist and flames 
came a mighty wall of water. We started downstairs 
and through the rear of the house to escape to the 
hill-side nearby. But before we could get. there the 
water was up to our necks and we could make no 
progress. We turned back and were literally dashed 
by the current into the house, which began to move 
off as soon as we were in it again. From the second- 
story window I saw a young man drifting toward us. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. SST 

I broke the glass from the frames with my hands and 
helped him in, and in a few moments more I pulled in 
an old man, a neighbor, who had been sick. 
Miraculous Escape. 

"Our house moved rapidly down the stream and 
fortunately lodged against a strong building. The 
water forced us out of the second story up into the 
attic. Then we heard a lot of people on our roof 
begging us for God's sake to let them in. I broke 
through the roof with a bed slat and pulled them in. 
Soon we had thirteen in all crouched in the attic. 

"Our house was rocking, and every now and then 
a building would crash against us. Every moment 
we thought we would go down. The roofs of all the 
houses drifting by us were covered with people, nearly 
all praying and some singing hymns, and now and 
then a house would break apart and all would go 
down. On Saturday at noon we were rescued, 
making our way from one building to the next by 
crawling on narrow planks. I counted hundreds of 
bodies lying in the debris, most of them covered over 
with earth and showing only the outlines of the form. 
A Sad Hospital Story. 

On a cot in the hospital on Prospect Hill there lies 
at present a man injured almost to death, but whose 
mental sufferings are far keener than his bodily pains. 
His name is Vering. He has lost in the flood his 
whole family — wife and five children. In an interview 
he said : 

*' I was at home with my wife and children when the 



332 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

alarm came. We hurried from the house, leaving 
everything behind us. As we reached the door a 
gentleman friend was running by. He grasped the 
two smaller children, one under each arm, and hurried 
on ahead of us. I had my arm around my wife, sup- 
porting* her. Behind us we could hear the flood rush- 
ing upon us. In one hurried glance, as I passed a 
corner, I could see the fearful crunching and hear the 
crackling of the houses in its fearful grasp. I then 
could see that there was no possibility of our escape, 
as we were too far away from the hill-side. In a few 
moments it was upon us. In a flash I saw the three 
dear children licked up by it and they disappeared 
from sight as I and my wife were thrown into the air 
by the vanguard of the rushing ruins. We found our- 
selves in a lot of drift, driving along with the speed of 
a race-horse. In a moment or two we were thrown 
with a crash against a frame building whose walls 
gave way before the flood as easily as if they were 
made of pie-crust, and the timbers began to fall about 
us in all directions. 

Up to this time I had retained a firm hold upon my 
wife, but as I found myself pinned between two heavy 
timbers the agony caused my senses to leave me 
momentarily. I recovered instantly in time to see my 
wife's head just disappearing under the water. Like 
lightning I grasped her by the hair and as best I could, 
pinioned as I was above the water by the timber, I 
raised her above it. The weight proved too much and 
she sank again. Again I pulled her to the surface and 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 333 

again she sank. This I did again and again with no 
avail. She drowned in my very grasp, and at last she 
dropped from my nerveless hands to leave my sight 
forever. As if I had not suffered enough, a few mo- 
ments after I saw some objects whirling around in an 
eddy which circled around, until, reaching the current 
again, they floated past me. My God, man, would 
you believe me? it was three of my children, dead. 
Their dear little faces are before me now, distorted in 
a look of agony that, no matter what I do, haunts me. 
O, if I could only have released myself at that time I 
would have willingly died with them. I was rescued 
some time after, and have been here ever since. I 
have since learned that my friend who so bravely 
endeavored to save two of the children was lost with 
them." 



CHAPTER XV. 
Terrible Pictures of Woe; 

The proportion of the living registered since the 
flood as against the previous number of inhabitants is 
even less than was reported yesterday. It was ascer- 
tained to-day that many of the names on the list were 
entered more than once and that the total number of 
persons registered is not more than 13,000 out of a 
former population of between 40,000 and 50,000, 

A new and more exact method of determining the 
number of the lost was inaugurated this morning. 
Men are sent out by the Relief Committee, who will 
go to every abode and obtain the names of the sur- 
vivors, and if possible those of the dead. 

The lack of identification of hundreds of bodies 
strengthens the inference that the proportion of the 
dead to the living is appalling. It is argued that the 
friends who might identify these unclaimed bodies are 
themselves all gone. 

Another significant fact Is that so large a number of 
those whom one meets in the streets or where the 
streets used to be are non-residents, strangers who 
have come here out of humane or less creditable 
motives. The question that is heard very often is, 
"Where are the inhabitants?" The town does not 
appear to have at present a population of more than 
10,000. 

(334) 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 335 

It is believed that many of the bodies of the dead 
have been borne down into the Ohio, and perhaps into 
the Mississippi as well, and hence may finally be 
deposited by the waters hundreds of miles apart, per- 
haps never to be recovered or seen by man again. 
The General Situation. 

Under the blue haze of smoke that for a week has 
hung over this valley of the shadow of death the work 
which is to resurrect this stricken city has gone steadily 
forward. Here and there over the waste where 
Johnstown stood in its pride black smoke arises from 
the bonfires on which shattered house-walls, rafters, 
doors, broken furniture and all the flotsam and jetsam 
of the great flood is cast. 

Adjutant General Hastings, who believes in heroic 
measures, has been quietly trying to persuade the 
"Dictator" — that is, the would-be "Dictator" — to 
allow him to burn up the wrecked houses wholesale 
without the tedious bother of pulling them down and 
handling the debris. The timorous committees would 
not countenance such an idea. Nothing but piece- 
meal tearing down of the wrecked houses tossed 
together by the mighty force of the water and destruc- 
tion by never-dying bonfires would satisfy them. Yet 
all of them must come down. Most of the buildings 
reached by the flood have been examined, found 
unsafe and condemned. Can the job be done safely 
and successfully wholesale or not ? That is the real 
question for the powers that be to answer, and no 
sentiment should enter into it. 



336 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Four thousand workmen are busy to-day with ropes 
and axe, pick and shovel. But the task is vast, it is 
herculean, like unto the cleaning of the Augean 
stables. 

"To clean up this town properly," said General 
Hastings to-day, " we shall need twenty thousand 
workmen for three months." 

The force of the swollen river upturned the town in 
a half hour. These same timorous managers weak- 
ened to-day, after having the facts before their eyes 
brought home to their understanding by constant iter- 
ation. They have found out that they have, vulgarly 
speaking, bitten off more than they can chew. Poisons 
of the foulest kind pollute the water which flows down 
the turgid Conemaugh into the Allegheny River, 
whence is Pittsburgh's water-supply, and thence into 
th-e Ohio, the water-supply of many cities and towns. 
Fears of a pestilence are not to be pooh-poohed into 
the background. It is very serious, so long as the 
river flows through the clogged and matted mass of 
the bridge so long it will threaten the people along its 
course with pestilence. The committee confess their 
inability to do this needed work, and to-day voted to 
ask the Governors of the several States to co-operate 
in the establishment of a national relief committee to 
grapple with the situation. Action cannot and must 
not be delayed. 

Hope Out of Despair. 

The fears of an outbreak of fever or other zymotic, 
diseases appear to be based oa the alleged presence 




GENERAL HASTINGS DIRECTING THE POLICE. 
22 (337) 



338 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

of decomposed animal matter, human and of lower 
type, concealed amid the debris. The alleged odor of 
burnt flesh coming from the enormous mass of con- 
glomerated timber and iron lodged in the cul-de-sac 
formed by the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge is ex- 
tremely mythical. There is an unmistakable scent of 
burnt wood. It would not be strange if the carcasses 
of domestic animals, which must be hidden in the 
enormous mass, were finally to be realized by the 
olfactory organs of the bystanders. 
Blasting Continues. 

All day long the blast of dynamite resounded among 
the hills. Cartridges were let off in the debris, and a 
cloud of dust and flying spray marked the result of the 
mining operation. The interlaced timbers in the cul- 
de-sac yielded very slowly even to the mighty force of 
dynamite. There were no finds of especial import. 
At the present rate of clearing, the cul-de-sac will not 
be free from the wreckage in two months. 

There was a sad spectacle presented this morning 

when the laborers were engaged in pulling over a vast 

pile of timber and miscellaneous matter on Main 

street. A young woman and a little puny baby girl 

were found beneath the mass, which was as high as 

the second story windows of the houses near by. 
Together in Deatli. 

The girl must have been handsome when in the 
flush of youth and health. She had seized the help- 
less infant and endeavored to find safety by flight. 
Her closely cut brown hair was filled with sand, and a 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 339 

piece of brass wire was wound around the head and 
neck. A loose cashmere house-gown was partially 
torn from her form, and one slipper, a little bead em- 
broidered affair, covered a silk-stockinged foot. Each 
arm was tightly clasped around the baby. The rigidity 
of death should have passed away, but the arms were 
fixed in their position as if composed of an unbendable 
material instead of muscle and bone. The fingers 
were imbedded in the sides of the little baby as if its 
protector had made a final effort not to be separated 
and to save if possible the fragile life. The faces of 
both were scarred and disfigured from contact with 
floating debris. The single garment of the baby — a 
thin white slip — was rent and frayed. The body of 
the young woman was identified, but the babe re- 
mained unknown. Probably its father and mother 
were lost in the flood, and it will never be claimed by 
friendly hands. 

A Strange Discovery, 
This is only one among the many pathetic incidents 
of the terrible disaster. There were only nine un- 
identified bodies at the Adams street morgue this 
afternoon, and three additions to the number were 
made after ten o'clock. Two hundred and eight 
bodies have been received by the embalmers in 
charge. The yard of the school house, which was 
converted into a temporaay abode of death, contains 
large piles of coffins of the cheaper sort. They come 
from different cities within two or three hundred miles 
of Johnstown, and after being stacked up they are 



340 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

pulled out as needed. Coffins are to be seen every- 
where about the valley, ready for use when a body is 
found. A trio of bodies was found near the Hurlburt 
House under peculiar circumstances. They were 
hidden beneath a pile of wreckage at least twenty-five 
feet in height. They were a father, a mother and son. 
Around the waist of each a quarter inch rope was tied 
so that the three were bound together tightly. The 
hands of the boy were clasped by those of the mother, 
and the father's arms were extended as if to ward off 
danger. The father probably knotted the rope during 
the awful moments of suspense intervening between 
the coming of the flood and the final destruction of the 
house they occupied. The united strength of the 
three could not resist the mighty force of the inunda- 
tion, and like so many straws they were swept on the 
boiling surge until life was crushed out. 
Child aiul Doll in One Coffin. 

I beheld a touching spectacle when the corpse of a 
little girl was extricated and placed on a stretcher for 
transportation to the morgue. Clasped to her breast 
by her two waxen hands was a rag doll. It was a 
cheap affair, evidently of domestic manufacture. To 
the child of poverty the rag baby was a favorite toy. 
The little mother held fast to her treasure and met her 
end without se[)arating from it. The two, child and 
doll, were not parted when the white coffin received 
them, and they will moulder together. 

I saw an old-fashioned cupboard dug out of a pile of 
rubbish. The top shelf contained a quantity of jelly 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 341 

of domestic manufacture. Not a glass jar was broken. 
Indeed there have been some remarkable instances of 
the escape of fragile articles from destruction. In the 
debris near the railroad bridge you may come upon all 
manner of things. The water-tanks of three locomo- 
tives which were borne from the roundhouse at Cone- 
maugh, two miles away, are conspicuous. Amid the 
general wreck, beneath one of these heavy iron tanks, 
a looking glass, two feet by one foot in dimensions, 
was discovered intact, without even a scratch on the 
quicksilver. 

Johnstown people surviving the destruction appear 
to bewail the death of the Fisher family. "Squire" 
Fisher was one of the old time public functionaries of 
the borough. He and his six children were swept 
away. One of the Fisher girls was at home under 
peculiar circumstances. She had been away at school, 
and returned home to be married to her betrothed. 
Then she was to return to school and take part in the 
graduating exercises. Her body has not yet been 
recovered. 

Something to be Thankful For. 

There is much destitution felt by people whose 
pride prevents them from asking for supplies from 
the relief committees. I saw a sad little procession 
wending up the hill to the camp of the Americus Club. 
There was a father, an honest, simple German, who 
had been employed at the Cambria works during the 
past twelve years. Behind him trooped eight chil- 
dren, from a girl of fourteen to a babe in the arms of 



342 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

the mother, who brought up the rear. The woman 
and children were hatless, and possessed only the 
calico garments worn at the moment of flight. For- 
lorn and weary, they ranged in front of the relieving 
stand and implored succor. 

"We lost one only, thank God!" exclaimed the 
mother. " Our second daughter is gone. We had a 
comfortable house which we owned. It was paid for 
by our savings. Now all is gone." Then the un- 
happy woman sat down on the wet ground and sobbed 
hysterically. The children crowded around their 
mother and joined in her grief. You will behold 
many of these scenes of domestic distress about the 
ruins of Johnstown in these dolorous days. 
Saw a Flood of Helpless Humanity. 

Mr. L. D. Woodruff, the editor and proprietor of 
the Johnstown Democrat, tells his experiences during 
the night of horrors. He was at the office of the 
paper, which is in the upper portion of the Baltimore 
and Ohio Railway station. This brick edifice stands 
almost in the centre of the couse of the flood, and its 
preservation from ruin is one of the remarkable feat- 
ures of the occasion. A pile of freight cars lodged at 
the corner of the building and the breakwater thus 
formed checked the onslaught of floating battering 
rams. Mr. Woodruff, with his two sons, remained 
in the building until the following day. The water 
came up to the floor of the second story. All 
night long he witnessed people floating past on 
the roofs of houses or on various kinds of wreck- 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 343 

age. A number of persons were rescued through 
the windows. 

A man and his wife with three children were pulled 
in. After a while the mother for the first time re- 
membered that her baby of fifteen months was left 
behind. Her grief was violent, and her cries were 
mingled with the groans of her husband, who lay on 
the floor with a broken leg. The next day the baby 
was found, when the waters subsided, on a pile of 
debris outside and it was alive and uninjured. 

During the first few hours Mr. Woodruff momenta- 
rily expected that the building would go. As the 
night wore away it became evident the water was 
going down. Not a vestige of Mr. Woodruff's dwel- 
ling has been found. 

The newspapers of Johnstown came out of the flood 
fairly well. The Democrat lost only a job press, which 
was swept out of one corner of the building. 
The Flood's Awful Spoil. 

In the broad field of debris at the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road viaduct, where the huge playthings of the flood 
were tossed only to be burned and beaten to a solid, 
intricate mass, are seen the peculiar metal works of 
two trains of cars. The wreck of the day express 
east, running in two sections that fatal Friday, lie 
there about thirty yards above the bridge. One mass 
of wreckage is unmistakably that of the Pullman car 
section, made up of two baggage cars and six Pull- 
man coaches, and the other shows the irons of five day 
coaches and one Pullman car. These trains were 



344 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

running in the same block at Johnstown and were 
struck by the flood two miles above, torn from their 
tracks and carried tumbling down the mighty torrents 
to their resting place in the big eddy. 

Railroad Men Suppressing Information. 

The train crew, who saw the waters coming, warned 
the passengers, escaped, and went home on foot. 
Conducror Bell duly made his report, yet for some un- 
known reasons one of Superintendent Pitcairn's sub- 
ordinates has been doing his best to give out and 
prove by witnesses, to whom he takes newspaper men, 
that only one car of that express was lost and with it 
" two or three ladies who went back for overshoes and 
a very few others not lively enough to escape after the 
warnings." That story went well until the smoke 
rolled away from the wreckage and the bones of the 
two sections of the day express east were disclosed. 
Another very singular feature was the apparent ina- 
bility of the conductor of the express to tell how many 
passengers they had on board and just how many 
were saved. It had been learned that the first section 
of the train carried i8o passengers and the second 
157. It may be stated as undoubtedly true that of the 
number fifty, at least, swell the horrible tale of the 
dead. 

From the wreck where the trains burned there have 
been taken out fifty-eight charred bodies, the features 
being unrecognizable. Of these seven found together 
were the Gllmore family, whose house had floated 
there. The others, all adults, which, with two or three 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 345 

exceptions, swell the list of the unidentified dead, are 
undoubted corpses of the ill-fated passengers of the 
east express. 

The Church Loses a Missionarj'. 

To-day another corpse was found in the ruins of a 
Pullman car badly burned. It was fully identified as 
that of Miss Anna Clara Chrisman, of Beauregard, 
Miss., a well-developed lady of about twenty-five years, 
who was on her way to New York to fill a mission sta- 
tion in Brazil. Between the leaves of her Greek tes- 
tament was a telegram she had written, expecting to 
send it at the first stop, addressed to the Methodist 
Mission headquarters. No. 20 East Twelfth street, 
New York, saying that she would arrive on "train 8 "' 
of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the day express east. 
In her satchel were found photographs of friends and 
her Bible, and from her neck hung a ^20 gold piece, 
carefully sewn in a bag. 

Is it possible that the Pennsylvania Railroad is keep- 
ing back the knowledge in order simply to avoid a list 
of "passengers killed" in its annual report, solely to 
keep its record as little stained as possible ? It can 
hardly be that they fear suits for damages, for the 
responsibility of the wreck does not rest on them. 

Two hundred bodies were recovered from the ruins 
yesterday. Some were identified, but the great ma- 
jority were not. This number includes all the morgues 
— the one at the Pennsylvania Railroad station, the 
Fourth ward school, Cambria city, Morrellville, Kern- 
ville and the Presbyterian Church. 



346 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR.- 

At the latter place a remarkable state of affairs 
exists. The first floor has been wa,shed out completely 
and the second, while submerged, was badly damaged, 
but not ruined. The walls, floors and pews were 
drenched, and the mud has collected on the matting 
and carpets an inch deep. Walking is attended with 
much difficulty, and the undertakers and attendants, 
with arms bared, slide about the slippery surface at a 
tremendous rate. The chancel is filled with coffins, 
strips of muslin, boards, and all undertaking accesso- 
ries. Lying across the tops of the pews are a dozen 
pine boxes, each containing a victim of the flood. 
Printed cards are tacked on each. Upon them the 
sex and full description of the enclosed body is written 
with the name, if known. 

Tlie Kameless Dead. 

The great number of bodies not identified seems in- 
credulous and impossible. Some of these bodies have 
Iain in the different morgues for four days. Thou- 
sands of people from diflerent sections of the State 
have seen them, yet they remain unidentified. 

At Nineveh they are burying all the unidentified 
dead, but in the morgues in this vicinity no bodies 
have been buried unless they were identified. 

The First Presbyterian Church contains nine " un- 
known." Burials will have to be made to-morrow. 
This morning workmen found three members of Ben- 
jamin Hoffinan's family, which occupied a large res- 
idence in the rear of Lincoln street. Benjamin Hoff- 
man, the head of the family, was found seated on the 




CARRYING CHILDREN TO BURIAL. 



(347) 



348 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

edge of the bedstead. He was evidently preparing to 
retire when the flood struck the building. He had his 
socks in his pocket. His twenty-year-old daughter 
was found close by attired in a night-dress. The 
youngest member of the family, a ihree-year-old in- 
fant, was also found beside the bed. 

Where the Dead are Laid. 

I made a tour of the cemeteries to-day to see how 
the dead were disposed in their last resting place. 
There are six burying grounds — two to the south of 
this place, one to the north, and three on Morrells- 
ville to the west. The principal one is Grand View, 
on the summit of Kernville Hill. 

But the most remarkable, through the damage done 
by the flood, is Sandy Vale Cemetery, at Horners- 
ville, on Stony Creek, and about half a mile from the 
city of Johnstown. It is a private institution in which 
most of the people of the city burled their dead until 
two years ago, when the public corporation of Grand 
View was established. Its grounds are level, laid out 
in lots, and were quite picturesque, its dense foliage 
and numerous monuments attracting the eyes of every 
passenger entering the city by the Baltimore and Ohio 
Railroad, which passes along one side the creek form- 
ing its other boundary. The banks of the creek are 
twenty feet high, and there was a nice sandy beach 
through its entire length. 

A Sorry Scene. 

When the floods came the first of the wreckage and 
the backwater sent hundreds of houses, immense 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 349 

quantities of logs and cut lumber over it and into the 
borough of Hornersville. As the angry waters sub- 
sided the pretty cemetery was wrecked as badly as was 
the city, a portion of the debris cf which has destroyed 
its symmetry. To make way for the burial of the 
numerous bodies sent there ty the town committees it 
became necessary to burn some of the debris. This 
was commenced at the nearest or southern end, and at 
the time of my visit I had, like the corpses, to pass 
throucjh an avenue of fire and over live ashes to make 
my inspection. There were no unknown dead sent 
here, consequently they were interred in lots, and here 
and there, as the cleared spots would allow, a bod}^ 
W3.S deposited and the grave made to look as decently 
as four or five inches of mud on the surface and the 
clay soil would allow. 

Masses of Debris. 
Scarcely a monument was left standing. Tall col- 
umns were broken like pipe-stems, and fences and 
evergreen bowers were almost a thing of the past. 
Whole houses on their sides, with their roofs on the 
ground, covered the lots, the beach, or blocked up the 
pathways, while other houses in fragments strewed 
the surface of the ground from one end to the other 
of the cemetery, once the pride of Johnstown. I 
found that some of the trees which were standing had 
feather beds or articles of furniture up in their boughs. 
Here and there a dead cow or a horse, two or three 
wagons, a railroad baggage car. Add to this several 
thousand logs, heaps of lumber, piled just as they 



350 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

left the yards, and still other single planks by the hun- 
dred thousand of feet, and some idea of the surround- 
ings of the victims of the flood placed at rest here can 

be obtained. 

On Kernville HiU. 

Grand View Cemetery, a beautiful spot, was started 
as a citizens' cemetery and incorporated two years ago, 
and is now the finest burying place in this section of 
Pennsylvania. It is situated on the summit of Kern- 
ville hill, between six hundred and seven hundred feet 
above the town. It is approached by a zigzag road- 
way about one mile and a half in length, and a mag- 
nificent view of the valley is obtained from the grounds, 
making it well worth a visit under any circumstances. 
Here those whose relatives did not hold lots are to be 
buried in trenches four feet deep, sixty bodies to a 
trench. At present the trenches are not complete, and 
their encoffined bodies are stored in the beautiful stone 
chapel at the entrance. Of the other bodies they are 
entombed in the lots, where more than one were 
buried together. A wide grave was dug to hold them 
side by side. A single grave was made for Squire 
Fisher's family, one grave and one mound holding 
eight of them. 

Snatched from the Flood. 

One of the most thrilling incidents of narrow 
escapes is that told by Miss Minnie Chambers. She 
had been to see a friend in the morning and was re- 
turning to her home on Main street, when the sud- 
denly rising waters caused her to quicken her steps. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 351 

Before she could reach her home or seek shelter at. 
any point, the water had risen so high and the current 
became so strong that she was swept from her feet 
and carried along in the flood. Fortunately her skirts 
served to support her on the surface for a time, but at 
last as they became soaked she gave up all hope of 
being saved. 

Just as she was going under a box car that had been 
torn from its trucks floated past her and she managed 
by a desperate effort to get hold of it and crawled 
inside the open doorway. Here she remained, expect- 
ing every moment her shelter would be dashed to 
pieces by the buildings and other obstructions that it 
struck. Through the door she could see the mass of 
angry, swirling waters, filled with all manner of things 
that could be well imagfined. 

An Ark of Kefuge. 

Men, women and children, many of them dead and 
dying, were being whirled along. Several of them 
tried to get refuge in the car with her, but were torn 
away by the rushing waters before they could secure 
an entrance. Finally a man did make his way into the 
car. On went the strange boat, while all about it 
seemed to be a perfect pandemonium. Shrieks and 
cries from the thousands outside who were being 
driven to their death filled the air. 

Miss Chambers says it was a scene that will haunt 
her as long as she lives. Many who floated by her 
could be seen kneeling on the wreckage that bore 
them, with clasped hands and upturned faces as 



352 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

though in prayer. Others wore a look of awful 
despair on their faces. Suddenly, as the car was 
turned around, the stone bridge could be seen just 
ahead of them. The man that was in the car called to 
her to jump out in the flood or she would be dashed 
to pieces. She refused to go. 

He seized a plank and sprang into the water. In 
an instant the edd)ing current had torn the plank 
from him, and as it twisted around struck him on the 
head, causing him to throw out his arms and sink 
beneath the water never to reappear again. Miss 
Chambers covered her face to avoid seeing any more 
of the horrible sight, when with an awful crash the car 
struck one of the stone piers. The entire side of it 
was knocked out. As the car lodged against the pier 
the water rushed through it and carried Miss 
Chambers away. Again she gave herself up as lost, 
when she felt herself knocked against an obstruction, 
and instinctively threw out her hand and clutched it. 

Here she remained until the water subsided, when 
she found that she was on the roof of one of the Cam- 
bria mills, and had been saved by holding on to a pipe 
that came through the roof. 

A Night of Agonj. 

All through that awful night she remained there, al- 
most freezing to death, and enveloped in a dense mass 
of smoke from the burning drift on the other side of 
the bridge. The cries of those being roasted to death 
were heard plainly by her. On Saturday some men 
succeeded in getting her from the perilous position 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 35^ 

she occupied and took her to the house of friends on 
Prospect Hill. Strange to say that with the excep-r 
tion of a few bruises she escaped without any other 
injuries. 

Another survivor who told a pathetic story was 
John C. Peterson. He is a small man but he was 
wearing clothes large enough for a giant. He lost 
his own and secured those he had on from friends. 

"I'm the only one left," he said in a voice trembling 
with emotion. ** My poor old mother, my sister, Mrs. 
Ann Walker, and her son David, aged fourteen, of 
Bedford county, who were visiting us, were swept 
away before my eyes and I was powerless to aid 
them." 

** The water had been rising all day, and along in the 
afternoon flooded the first story of our house, at the 
corner of Twenty-eighth and Walnut streets. I was 
employed by Charles Mun as a cigarmaker, and early 
on Friday afternoon went home to move furniture and 
carpets to the second story of the house. 

" As near as I can tell it was about four o'clock when 
the whistle at the Gautier steel mill blew. About the 
same time the Catholic church bell rang. I knew 
what that meant and I turned to mother and sister and 
said, * My God, we are lost !' 

Here's A Hero. 

"I looked out of the window and saw the flood, a 

wall of water thirty feet high, strike the steel works» 

and it melted quicker than I tell it. The man who 

stopped to blow the warning whistle must have been 

23 



354; THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

crushed to death by the falling roof and chimneys. 
He might have saved himself, but stopped to give the 
warning. He died a hero. Four minutes after the 
whistle blew the water was in our second story. 
. ' "We started to carry mother to the attic, but the 
water rose faster than we could climb the stairs. 
There was no window in our attic, and we were bid- 
ding each other good-by when a tall chimney on the 
house adjoining fell on our roof and broke a hole 
through it. We then climbed out on the roof, and in 
lanother moment our house floated away. It started 
down with the other stuff, crashing, twisting and quiv- 
«ering. I thought every minute it would go to pieces. 

" Finally it was shoved over into water less swift 
arid near another house. 

"I found that less drift was forced against It than 
against ours, and decided to get on it. I climbed up 
,pn the roof, and in looking up saw a big house coming 
.down directly toward ours, I called to sister to be 
quick. She was lifting mother up to me. I could 
barely reach the tips of her fingers when her arm§ 
were raised up while I lay on my stomach reaching 
vdowft. At that moment the house struck ours and 
my loved ones were carried away and crushed by the 
ibig house. It was useless for me to follow, for they 
sank out of sight. I floated down to the bridge, then 
bafck •\Arith the ^current and landed at Vine street. 
. "I saw hundreds of people crushed and drowned. 
Jt is my opinion ithat fully fifteen thousand people per- 



THE JOHNSTOWN horror; 8^ 

When the whistles of the Gautier >Steel Mill of the 
Cambria Iron Company blew for the ■ shutting down of 
the works at lo o'clock last Friday morning nearly 
1400 men walked out of the establishment and went 
to their homes, which were a few hours later wiped off 
the face of the earth. When the men to-^day answered 
the notice that all should present themselves ready fo> 
work only 487 reported. That shows more clearly 
than anything else that has yet been known the terr^ 
ble nature of the fatality of the Coriemaugh. The 
mortality wrought among these men in a few hours fe 
thus shown to have been greater than that In either df 
the armies that contended for three days at Gettys* 
burg. ■' 

*' Report at 9 o'clock to-morrow morning ready fo'f 
work," the notice posted read. It did not say where; 
but everybody knew it was not at the great Gautier 
Mill that Covered half a dozen acres, for the reason 
that no mill is there. By a natural impulse the survi- 
vors of the working force of the steel ■ plant began to 
move from all directions, before the hour named, toward 
the general office of the company. 

What the Superintendent Saw. . 

This office is located in Johnstown proper and is the 
only building in that section of the town left standing 
uninjured. It is a large brick building, three stories- 
high, with massive brick walls. L. L. Smith, the com- 
mercial agent of the company, arrived* at eight o'clock 
to await the gathering of the men, pausing a minute 
in the dooi'way to look at two things. One was an 



S56 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

enormous pile of debris, bricks, iron girders and 
timbers almost in front of the office door which 
swarmed with 200 men engaged in clearing it away. 
This is the ruins of the Johnstown Free Library, pre- 
sented to the town by the Cambria Iron Company, the 
late I. V. Williamson and others, and beneath it Mr. 
Smith knew many of his most intimate friends were 
buried. The other thing he looked at was his hand- 
some residence partly in ruins, a few hundred yards 
away. When he entered the office he found that the 
men who had been shoveling the mud out of the office 
had finished their work and the floor was dark and 
Sticky. A fire blazed in the open grate. A table was 
quickly rigged up and with three clerks to assist him, 
Mr. Smith prepared to make up the roster of the 
Gautier forces. 

The Survivor's Advance Corps. 
; Soon they began to come like the first reformed 
platoon of an army after fleeing from disaster. The 
leader of the platoon was a small boy. His hat was 
pulled down over his eyes and he looked as if he were 
-sorely afraid. After him came half a dozen men with 
shambling gait One was an Irishman, two were En- 
glish, one was a German and one a colored man. 
Two of them carried pickaxes in their hands, which 
they had been using to clear away the wreckage across 
the street. 

** Say, mister,** stammered the abashed small boy, 
" is this the place ? " 

. "Are you a Gautier man?" asked Mr. Smith 
kindly. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 397 

"Yes, sir, me and me father, but he's gone. 

"Give us your name, my boy, and report at the 
lower works at 4 o'clock. Now, my men, we want to 
get to work and pull each other out of the hole, this 
dreadful calamity has put us in. It's no use having 
vain regrets. It's all over and we must put a good 
face to the front. At first it was Intended that we 
should go up to the former site of the Gautier Mill 
and clean up and get out all the steel we could. Mt. 
Stackhouse now wants us to get to work and clear 
the way from the lower mills right up the valley. We 
will rebuild the bridge back of the office here and push 
the railroad clear up to where it was before. ' 

Not Anxious to Turn In* 

The men listened attentively, and then one of them 
asked : " But, Mr. Smith, if we don't feel just likt 
turning in to-day we don't have to, do we ? " 

" Nobody will have to work at all," was the answer, 
" but we do want all the men to lend a hand to help us 
out as soon as they can." ' 

While Mr. Smith was speaking several other work- 
men came in. They, too, were Gautier employees', 
and they had pickaxes on their shoulders. They heard 
the agent's last remark, and one of them, stepping for- 
ward, said : "A good many of us are working cleaning 
up the town. Do you want us to leave that? " 

"It isn't necessary for you to work cleaning up the 
town," was the reply. "There are plenty of people 
from the outside to do that who came here for that 
purpose. Now, boys, just give your names so we cart 



458 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

find out how many of our men are left, and all of you 
,that can, go down and report at the lower office." 
., All the time the members of the decimated Gautier 
airmy were filing into the muddy-floored office. They 
-C^me in twos and threes and dozens, and some bore 
;Put the idea of an army reforming after disaster, be- 
cause they bore grievous wounds. One man had a 
icjeep cut in the back of his head, another limped along 
on a heavy stick, one had lost a finger and had an 
ajgly bruise on his cheek. J. N. Short, who was the 
foreman of the cold-rolled steel shafting department, 
^at in the office, and many of the men who filed past 
had been under him in the works. 

Mutual Gongrratulations. 
There were handshakes all the more hearty and con- 
gratulations all the more sincere because of what all had 
passed through. When the wall of water seventy-five 
feet high struck the mill and whipped it away like shot 
Mr. Short was safe on higher ground, but many of 
the men had feared he was lost. 

, "I tell you, Mr. Short," said J. T. Miller, "I'm glad 
to see you're safe." 

, ** And how did you make out, old man? " 
" All right, thank God." 

, Then came another man bolder than all and appar- 
ently a general favorite. He rushed forward and 
shook Mr. Smith's hand. " Mr. Smith," he exclaimed, 
*>* good morning, good morning." 

V '^So you got out of it, did you, after all?" asked 
Mr. Smith. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 359 

" Indeed I did, but Lord bless my soul, I thought the 
wife and babies were gone." The man gave his name 
and hurried away, brushing a tear from his eye. 

Mr. Shellenberger, one of the foremen, brought up 
the rear of the next platoon to enter. He caught 
sight of Mr. Smith and shouted: "Oh, Mr. Smith: 
good for you. I'm glad to see you safe." 

" Here to you, my hearty," was the answer. " Did 
you all get off?" 

"Every blessed one of us," with a bright smile. 
"We were too high on the hill." 

He was Tired of Johnstown, 

A little bit later another man came in. He looked 
as if he had been weeping. He hesitated in front of 
the desk. " I am a Gautier employee," he said, speak* 
ing slowly, "and I have reported according to orders.** 

" Well, give us your name and go to work down at 
the lower works," suggested Mr. Smith. 

"No, sir, I think not," he muttered, after a pause. 
" I am not staying in this town any longer than I can 
help, I guess. I've lost two children and they will be 
buried to-day." 

" All right, my man, but if you want work we have 
plenty of it for you." 

The reporting of names and these quiet mutual 
congratulations of the men went on rapidly, but ex- 
pected faces did not appear. This led Mr. Smith to 
ask, "How about George Thompson? Is he alive ? " 

** I do not know," answered the man addressed. "I 
do not think so." 



360 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR, 

"Who do you know are alive?" asked Mr. Smith, 
turning to another man. Mr. Smith never once asked 
who was dead. ' 

"Well," answered the man speaking reflectively, 
*' I'm pretty sure Frank Smith is alive. John Dagdale 
is alive. Tom Sweet is alive, and I don't know any 
more, for I've been away — at Nineveh." The speak- 
er had been at Nineveh looking for the body of his 
son. Not another word was said to him. 

"Say, boys," exclaimed Mr. Smith suddenly, a few 
minutes after he had looked over the list, " Pullman 
hasn't reported yet." 

"But Pullman's all right," said a man quickly, "I 

was up at his sister's house last night and he was 

there. That's more than I can say of the other men 

in Pullman's shift though," added the speaker in a low 

tone. Mr. Short took this man aside, ** That is a 

fact," said he, "yesterday I knew of a family in which 

five out of six were lost. To-day I find out there 

were twenty people in the house mostly our men and 

only three escaped." 

Each Tliouglit the Other Dead. 

Just then two men met at the door and fairly fell on 

each other's necks. One wore a Grand Army badge 

and the other was a young fellow of twenty-three or 

thereabouts. They had been fast friends in the same 

department, and each thought the other dead. They 

knew no better till they met at the office door. "Well, 

I heard your body had been found at Nineveh," said 

the old man. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 361 

"And I was told you had been burned to death at 
the bridge," answered the other. Then the two men 
solemnly shook hands and walked away together. 

A pale-faced woman with a shawl over her shoulders 
entered and stood at the table. " My husband cannot 
report," she said simply, in almost a whisper. " He 
worked for the Gautier Mill?" she was asked. She 
nodded, bent forward and murmured something. The 
man at the desk said : " Make a note of that ; so-and- 
so's wife reports him as gone, and his wages due are 
to be paid to her." 

The work of recording the men went on until nearly 
one o'clock. Then, after waiting for a long time, Mr. 
Smith said, *'Out of 1400 men we now have 487. It 
may be there are 200 who either did not see the notice 
or who are too busy to come. Anyway, I hope so — 
my God, I hope so." All afternoon the greater part of 
the 487 men were swinging pickaxes and shovels, 
clearing the way for the railroad leading up to the 
Gautier Steel Works of the future. 

The Morbidly Curious. 

To-day the order " Halt ! " rang out in earnest at 
the footbridge over the rushing river into Johnstown. 
It was the result of a cry as early as the reveille, that 
came from among the ruins and from the hoarse 
throats of the contractors — "For God's sake, keep 
the morbid people out of here ; they're in the way ! " 

General Hastings ordered the picket out on the 
high embankment east of the freight depot, where 
every man, woman and child must pass to reach the 



362 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR; 

bridge. Colonel Perchment detailed Captain Hamil- 
ton, of G Company, there with an ample guard, and 
all who came without General Hastings' pass in the 
morning were turned aside. This afternoon a new 
difficulty was encountered. When you flashed youf 
military pass on the sentinel who cried " Halt ! " he 
would throw his gun slantwise across your body, so 
that the butt grazed your right hip and the bayonet 
your left ear and say : " No good unless signed by the 
sheriff." The civil authorities had taken the bridge 
out of the hands of the militia, and the sheriff sat on 
a camp stool overlooking the desolate city all the fore- 
noon making out passes and approving the General's. 
No Conflict of Authority. 

The military men say there was no conflict of 
authority, and it was deemed proper that the civil 
authorities should still control the pass there. The 
sheriff came near getting shot in Cambria City this 
morning during a clash with one of his deputies over 
a buggy. Yet he looked calm and serene. Some 
beg him for passes to hunt for their dead. One man 
cried : " I've just gotten here, and my wife and chil- 
dren are in that town ; another said, ** I belong in 
Conemaugh and was carried off by the flood," while an 
aged, trembling man behind him whispered, "Sheriff, 
I just wanted to look where the old home stood." 
When four peaceful faced sisters in convent garb, on 
their mission of mercy, came that way the sentinels 
stood back a pace and no voice ordered *• Halt !" 

At noon the crane belonging to the Pennsylvania 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 363 

Railroad was taken away from the debris at the bridge, 
and Mr. Kirk had to depend on dynamite alone. 
Later it was ordered back, and after that the work 
went on rapidly. An opening 400 feet long, which 
runs back in some places fifty feet, was made during 
the afternoon. A relief party yesterday found a 
ladies' hand satchel containing $91 in cash, deeds for 
$26,000 in property and about $10,000 in insurance 
policies. Mrs. Lizzie Dignom was the owner, and 
both she and her husband perished in the flood. 
Remembering" the Orphans. 

Miss H. W. Hinckley and Miss E. Hanover, agents 
of the Children's Aid Society and Bureau of Informa- 
tion of Philadelphia, arrived here this morning, and in 
twenty minutes had established a transfer agency. 
Miss Hinckley said : 

** There are hundreds of children here who are 
apparently without parents. We want all of them 
given to us, and we will send them to the various 
homes and orphanages of the State, where they shall 
be maintained for several months to await the pos- 
sibility of the reappearance of their parents when they 
will be returned to them. If after the lapse of a 
month they do not reclaim their little ones, we shall 
do more than we ordinarily do in the way of providing 
good homes for children in their cases. Think of it, 
in the house adjoining us are seven orphans, all of 
one family. We have been here only a half hour, but 
we have already found scores. We shall stay right 
here till every child has been provided for." 



364 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

There Is no denying that a great deal of ill-feel- 
ing is breeding here between the survivors of the 
flood over the distribution of the relief supplies. The 
supplies are spread along the railroad track down as 
far as Morrellville in great stacks ; provisions, cloth- 
ing, shoes, and everything else. The people come for 
them in swarms with baskets and other means of con- 
veyance. Lines are drawn, which are kept in trim by 
the pickets, and in this way they pass along in turn to 
the point where the stock is distributed. 

It was not unusual yesterday to hear women's 
tongues lashing each other and complaining that the 
real sufferers were being robbed and turned away, 
while those who had not fared badly by flood or 
fire were getting lots of everything from the com- 
mittee. One woman made this complaint to a cor- 
poral. 

" Prove it ; prove It," he said, and walked away. 
She cried after him, "The pretty women are getting 
more than they can carry." 

Twice the line of basket-carriers was broken by the 
guard to put out wranglers, and all through the 
streets of Cambria City could be heard murmurs of 
dissension. There is no doubt but that a strong 
guard will be kept in the town day and night, for in 
their deplorable condition the husbands may take up 
the quarrel of their wives. 

Dangler of Insanity. 
, The Medical News, of Philadelphia, with rare enter- 
prise, despatched a member of its staff to Johnstown, 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 365 

and he telegraphed as follows for the next issue of 
that paper : 

** The mental condition of almost every former res- 
ident of Johnstown is one of the gravest character, 
and the reaction which will set in when the reality of 
the whole affair is fully comprehended can scarcely fail 
to produce many cases of permanent or temporary 
insanity. Most of the faces that one meets, both male 
and female, are those of the most profound melancho- 
lia, associated with an almost absolute disregard of the 
future. The nervous system shows the strain it has 
borne by a tremulousness of the hand and of the lip, 
in man as well as in woman. This nervous state is 
further evidenced by a peculiar intonation of words, 
the persons speaking mechanically, while the voices of 
many rough-looking men are changed into such trem- 
ulous notes of so high a pitch, as to make one imagine 
that a child, on the verge of tears, is speaking. Cry- 
ing is so rare that your correspondent saw not a tear 
on any face in Johnstown, but the women that are left 
are haggard, with pinched features and heavy, dark 
lines under their eyes. 

The State Board of Health should warn the people 

of the portions of the country supplied by the Cone- 

maugh of the danger of drinking its waters for weeks 

to come." 

The Women and Children. 

New Johnstown will be largely a city of childless 
widowers. One of the peculiar things a stranger 
notices is the comparatively small number of women 



366 THE JOHNSTOWN HOUROR. 

seen in the streets. Of the throngs who walked afeout 
the place searching for dear friends there is not one 
woman to ten men. Occasionally a little group of two 
or three women with sad faces will pick their way 
about looking for the morgues. There are a few 
Sisters of Charity— their black robes the only instance 
in which the conventional badge of mourning is seen 
upon the streets — and in the parts of the town not 
totally destroyed the usual number of women are seen 
in the houses and yards. 

But, as a rule, women are a rarety in Johnstown 
now. This is not a natural peculiarity of Johnstown 
nor a mere coincidence, but a fact with a terrible 
reason behind it. There are so many more men than 
women among the living in Johnstown now because 
there are so many more women than men among the 
dead. Of the bodies recovered there are at least two 
women to every one man. Besides the fact that their 
natural weakness made them an easier prey to the 
flood, the hour at which the disaster came was one 
when the women would most likely be in their homes 
and the men at work in the open air or in factory 
yards, from which escape was easy. 

An Almost Childless City. 

Children also are rarely seen about the town and 
for a similar reason. They are all dead. There is 
never a group of the dead discovered that does not 
contain from one to three or four children for every 
grown person. Generally the children are in the arms 
of the grown persons, and often little toys and trinkets 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 367 

clasped in their hands indicate that the children were 
caught up while at play and carried as far as possible 
toward safety. 

' Johnstown, when rebuilt, will be a city of many wid- 
owers and few children^ In turning a schoolhouse into 
a morgue, the authorities probably did a wiser thing 
than they thought. It will be a long time before the 
schoolhouse will be needed for its original purpose. 
The Flood on the Flat. 
The flood, with a front of twenty feet high, bristling 
with all manner of debris, struck straight across the 
flat, as though the river's course had always been that 
way. It cut off the outer two-thirds of the city with a 
line as true and straight as could have been drawn by 
a survey. On the part over which it swept there 
remains standing but one building, the brewery. With 
this exception, not only the houses and stores, but the 
pavements, sidewalks and curbstones, and the earth 
beneath for several feet are washed away. The pave- 
ments were of cinders from the Iron Works ; a bed 
six inches thick and as hard as stone and with a sur- 
face like macadam. Over west of the washed-out por- 
tion of the city not even the broken fragments of these 
pavements are left. 

• Aside from the few logs and timbers left by the 
afterwash of the flood, there is nothing remaining upon 
the outer edge of the flat, including two of the four 
long streets of the city, except the brewery mentioned 
before and a grand piano. The water-marks on the 
brewery walls show the flood reached twenty feet up 



368 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

its sides and it stood on a little higher ground than 
buildings around it at that. 

Thieves Had Rifled His Safe. 
Mr. Steires, who on last Friday was the wealthiest 
man in town, on Sunday was compelled to borrow the 
dress which clothed his wife. When the flood began .- 
to threaten he removed some of the most valuable 
papers from his safe and moved them to the upper 
story of the building to keep them from getting wet. 
When the dam burst and Conemaugh Lake came down 
these, of course, went with the building. He got his 
safe Monday, but found that thieves had been before 
him, they having chiseled it open and taken everything 
but $65 in a drawer which they overlooked. Mr. 
Steires said to day: "I am terribly crippled financially, 
but my family were all saved and I am ready to begin 
over again." 

Kebuilding Goings On Apace. 

Oklahoma is not rising more quickly than the tem- 
porary buildings of the workmen's city, which includes 
5,000 men at least, and who are mingling the sounds 
of hammers on the buildings they are putting up for 
their temporary accommodation, with the crash of the 
buildings they are tearing down. It seemed almost a 
waste of energy two days ago, but the different gangs 
are already eating their way towards the heart of the 
great masses of wreckage that block the streets in 
every direction. 

A dummy engine has already been placed in | 
position on what was the main street, and all the large j 



/ THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 369 

logs and rafters that the men can not move are fast- 
ened with ropes and chains, and drawn out by the 
engine into a clear space, where they are surrounded 
by smaller pieces of wood and burned. Carloads of 
pickaxes, shovels and barrows are arriving from Bal- 
timore for the workmen. 

First Store Opened. 

The first store was opened to-day by a grocer 
named W. A. Kramer, whose stock, though covered 
with mud and still wet from the flood, has been pre- 
served intact. So far the greater part of his things 
have been bought for relics. The other storekeepers 
are dragging out the debris in their shops and shovel- 
ing the mud from the upper stories upon inclined 
boards that shoot it into the street, but with all this 
energy it will be weeks before the streets are brought 
to sight again. 

As a proof of this, there was found this morning a 
passenger car fully half a mile from its depot, com- 
pletely buried beneath the floor and roofs of other 
houses. All that could be seen of it by peering 
through intercepting rafters was one of the end 
windows over which was painted the impotent warn- 
ing of "Any person injuring this car will be dealt with 
accord in or to law." 

o 

Curious Finds of TVorkni< ii. 

The workmen fmd many curious things among the 
ruins, and are, it should be said to their credit, par- 
ticularly punctilious about leaving them alone. One 
man picked up a base-ball catcher's mask under a 



570 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

great pile of machinery, and the decorated front of 
the balcony circle of the Opera House was found 
with the chairs still immediately about its semi-circle, a 
quarter of a mile from the theatre's site. 

The mahogany bar of a saloon, with its nickel-plated 
rail, lies under another heap in the city park, and thou- 
sands of cigars from a manufactory are piled high in 
Vine street, and are used as the only dry part of the 
roadway. Those of the people who can locate their 
homes have gathered what furniiure and ornaments 
they can fmd together, and sit beside them looking like 
•evicted tenants. 

The Grand Army of the Republic, represented by 
Department Commander Thomas J. Stewart, have 
placed a couple of tents at the head of Main street for 
the distribution of food and clothing. A census of the 
people will be taken and the city divided into districts, 
vcach worthy applicant will be furnished with a ticket 
giving his or her number and the number of the dis- 
trict. 

The Post-office Uiiilbrnis. 

Across the street from the Grand Army tents is the 
temporary post-office, which is now in fairly good 
•workinof order. One of the distributinp" clerks hunted 
up a newspaper correspondent to tell him that the 
post-office uniforms sent from Philadelphia by the 
employees of that city's office have arrived safely 
and that the men want to return thanks through this 
(paper. 

The Red Cross Army people from Philadelphia 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 371 

have decided to remain, notwithstanding General 
Hastings' cool reception, and they have taken up their 
quarters in Kernville, where they say the .destitu- 
tion is as great as in what was the city proper. 
The Tale the Clocks Tell. 

The clocks of the city in both pubHc and private 
houses tell different tales of the torrent that stopped 
them. Some of them ceased to tick the moment the 
water reached them. In Dibert's banking-house the 
marble time-piece on the mantel stopped at seven 
minutes after 4 o'clock. In the house of the Hon. 
John M. Rose, on the bank of Stony Creek, was a 
clock in every room of the mansion from the cellar to 
the attic. Mr. Rose is a fine machinist, and the 
mechanism of clocks has a fascination for him that is 
simply irresistible. He has bronze, marble, cuckoo, 
corner or "grandfather" clocks — all in his house. 
One of them was stopped exactly at 4 o'clock ; still 
another at 4.10; another at 4.15, and one was not 
stopped till 9 P. M. The "grandfather" clock did 
not stop at all, and is still going. 

The town clocks, that is the clocks in church towers, 
are all going and were not injured by the water. The 
mantel piece clocks in nearly every house show a 
"no tick " at times ranging from 3.40 to 4.15. 
Dead iu the Jail. 

This morning a man, in wandering through the 
skirts of the city, came upon the city jail, and finding 
the outer door open, went into the gloomy structure. 
Hanging against the wall he found a bunch of keys 



g72 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

and fitting them in the doors opened them one after 
another. In one cell he found a man l}ing on the 
fi^oor in the mud in a condition of partial decom- 
position. He looked more closely at the dead body 
and recognized it as that of John McKee, son of 
Squire McKee, of this city, who had been committed 
ibr a short term on Decoration Day for drunkenness. 
The condition of the cell showed that the man had 
been overpov/ered and smothered by the water, but 
not till he had made every effort that the limits of his 
cell would allow to save himself. There were no 
other prisoners in the jail. 

Heroes of the K^ight. 

Thomas JMagee, the cashier of the Cambria Iron 
Company's general stores, tells a thrilling story of the 
manner in which he and his fellow clerks escaped from 
the waters themselves, saved the money drawers and 
rescued the lives of nineteen other people during the 
progress of the flood. He says : 

It was 4.15 o'clock when the flood struck our build- 
ing with a crash. It seemed to pour in from every 
door and window on all sides, as well as from the 
floors above us. I was standing by the safe, which 
was open at the time, and snatched the tin box which 
contained over ^12,000 in cash, and with other clerks 
at my heels flew up the stairs to the second floor. In 
about three minutes we were up to our waists in 
water, and started to climb to the third fioor of the 
building. Here we remained with the money until 
Saturday morning, when we were taken out in boats. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR, 37g 

Besides myself there were in the building Michael 
Maley, Frank Balsinger, Chris Mintzmeyer, Joseph 
Berlin and Frank Burger, all of whom escaped. All 
Friday night and Saturday morning we divided our 
time between guarding the money, providing for our 
own safety and rescuing the poor people floating by. 
We threw out ropes and gathered logs and timbers 
together until we had enough to make a raft, which 
we bound together with ropes and used in rescuing 
people. During the night we rescued Henry Weaver, 
his wife and two children ; Captain Cars well, wife and 
three children, and three servant girls ; Patrick RaveJ, 
wife and one child ; A. M. Dobbins and two others 
whose names I have forgotten. Besides this we cut 
large pieces of canvas and oilcloth and wrapped it 
around bread and meat and other eatables and threw 
it or floated it out to those who went by on housetops, 
rafts, etc., whom we could not rescue without getting 
Qur raft in the drift and capsizing. We must have fed 
lOO people in this way alone. 

When we were rescued ourselves we took the 
money over to Prospect Hill, and sent to the justice 
of the peace, who swore us all in to keep guard over 
our own money and that taken by Paymaster Barry 
from the Cambria Iron Company's general offices, 
amounting to $4000, under precisely the same circum- 
stances that marked our escape. We remained oii 
guard until Monday night, when the soldiers canie 
over and escorted us back to the ofifice of the Cambria 
Iron Company, where we placed the money in the 
company's vault. 



S74 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

' So far as known at this hour only eighteen bodies 
have been this morning recovered in the Conemaugh 
Valley. '■ One of these was a poor remnant of humanity 
that was suddenly discovered by a teamster in the cen- 
tre of the road over which his wagons had been pass- 
ing for the past forty-eight hours. The heavy vehicles 
had sunk deeply in the sand and broken nearly every 
bone in the putrefying body. It was quite impossible 
to identify the corpse, and it was taken to the morgue 
and orders issued for its burial after a few hours' expo- 
sure to the gaze of those who still eagerly search for 
missing; friends. 

Only the hardiest can bear to enter the Morgue this 
morning, so overwhelming is the dreadful stench. The 
undertakers even, after hurriedly performing their task 
of washing a dead body and preparing it for burial, re- 
treat to the yard to await the arrival of the next ghastly 
find. A strict order is now in force that all bodies should 
be interred only when it becomes impossible to longer 
preserve them from absolute putrefaction. There is 
no iron-clad rule. In some instances it is necessary to 
inter some putrid body within a few hours, while others 
can safely be preserved for several days. Every pos- 
sible opportunity is afforded for identification. 

Four bodies were taken from the ruins at the Cam- 
bria Club House and the company's store this morning. 
The first body was that of a girl about seventeen years 
of age. She was found in the pantry and it is sup- 
posed that she was one of the servants in the house. 
She was terribly bruised and her face was crushed into 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 375 

a jelly. A boy about seven years of age was taken 
from the same place. Two men and a woman were 
taken from in front of a store on Main street. The 
remains were all bruised and in a terrible condi- 
tion. They had to be embalmed and buried immedi- 
ately, and it was impossible to have any one identify 

them. 

Only Fifty Saved at Woodville. 

The number of people missing from Woodville is 
almost incredible, and from present indications it 
looks as if only about fifty people in the borougli were 
saved. Mrs. H. L. Peterson, who has been a resident 
at Woodville for a number of years, is one of the 
survivors. While looking for Miss Paulsen, of Pitts- 
burg, of the drowned, she came to a coffin which 
was marked "Mrs. H. L. Peterson, Woodville Bor- 
ough, Pa., age about forty, size five feet one inch, 
complexion dark, weight about two hundred pounds." 
This was quite an accurate description of Mrs. Peter- 
son. She tore the card from the coffin and one of the 
officers was about to arrest her. Her explanations 
were satisfactory and she was released. 

In speaking of the calamity afterward she said : 
" The people of Woodville had plenty of time to get 
out of the town if they were so minded. We received 
word shordy before two o'clock that the flood was 
coming, and a Pennsylvania Railroad conductor went 
through the town notifying the people. I stayed 
until half-past three o'clock, when the water com- 
menced to rise very rapidly^ and I thought it was best 



373 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

to get out of town. I told a number of women that 
they had better go to the hills, but they refused, and 
the cause of this refusal was that their husbands 
would not go with them and they refused to leave 
alone." 

Terrific Experience of a PuUman Conductor. 

Mr. John Barr, the conductor of the Pullman car on 
the day express train that left Pittsburgh at eight 
o'clock. May 31, gave an account of his experience in 
the Conemaugh Valley flood: "I was the last one 
saved on the train," he said. "When the train 
arrived at Johnstown last Friday, the water was up to 
the second story of the houses and people were going 
about in boats. We went on to Conemaugh and had 
to halt there, as the water had submerged the tracks 
and a part of the bridge had been washed away. Two 
sections of the day express were run up to the most 
elevated point. 

"About four o'clock I was standing at the buffet 
when the whistle began blowing a continuous blast — - 
the relief signal. I went out and saw what appeared 
to be a huge moving mountain rushing rapidly toward 
us. It seemed to be surmounted by a tall cloud of 

foam. 

Sounding' the Alarm. 

" I ran into the car and shouted to the passengers, 
'For God's sake follow me ! Stop for nothing ! ' 

"They all dashed out except two. Miss Paulsen 
and Miss Bryan left the car, but returned for their 
overshoes. They put them on, and as they again 




(377) 



378 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Stepped from the car they were caught by the mighty 
wave and swept away. Had they remained in the car 
they would have been saved, as two passengers who 
stayed there escaped. 

"One was Miss Virginia Maloney, a courageous, 
self-possessed young woman. She tied securely about 
her neck a plush bag, so that her identity could be 
established if she perished. Imprisoned in the car 
with her was a maid employed by Mrs. McCullough. 
They attempted to leave the car, but the water drove 
them back. They remained there until John Waugh, 
the porter, and I waded through the water and rescued 
them. 

"The only passengers I lost were the two unfortu- 
nate young ladies I have named. I looked at the 
corpses of the luckless victims brought in during the 
two days I remained in Johnstown, but the bodies of 
the two passengers were not among them. 

*'At Conemaugh the people were extremely kind 
and hospitable. They threw open their doors and pro- 
vided us with a share of what little food they had and 
gave us shelter. 

Stripped of Her Clothing. 

"While at Conemaugh, Miss Wayne, of Altoona, 
who had a miraculous escape, was brought in. She 
was nude, every article of her clothing having been 
torn from her by the furious flood. There was no 
female apparel at hand, and she had to don trousers, 
coat, vest and hat. 

"We had a severe task in reaching Ebensburg, 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 379 

eighteen miles from Conemaugh. We started on 
Sunday and Avere nine hours in reaching our destina- 
tion. At Ebe.nsburg we boarded the train which con- 
veyed us to Altoona, where we were cared for at the 
expense of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. 

"I had a rough siege. I was in the water twelve 
hours. The force of the flood can be imagined by the 
fact that seven or eight locomotives were carried 
away and ficated on the top o/ the angry strearc as if 
they wetc tiny chipSi" 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Stories of ttie Flood. 

"War, death, catacIyMn like this, America, 
Take deep to thy proud, prosperous heart. 

E'en as I chant, lo ! out of death, and out of ooze and slime, 

The blossoms rapidly blooming, sympathy, help, love, 

From west and east, f om south and north and over sea, 

Its hot spurr'd hears and hands humanity to human aid moves on ; 

And from wi'.hiu a thought and lesson yet. 

Thou ever-darting globe ! thou Earth and Air I 

Thou waters that encompass us ! 

Thou that in all tlie life and death of us, in action or in sleep. ' 

Thou laws invisible that permeate them and all 1 

Thou that in all and over all, and through and under all, i cessant ! 

Thou ! thou ! the vital, universal, giant force resistless, .sleepless, calm, 

Holding Humanity as in the open hand, as some ephemeral toy, 

How ill to e'er forget ihee ! 

Wa/i ll'liiiman. 

"Are the horrors of the flood to give way to the 
terrors of the plague?" is the question tliat is now 
agitating the valley of the Conemaugh. To-day 
opened warm and almost sultry, and the stench that 
assails one's senses as he wanders through Johnstown 
is almost overpowering. Sickness, in spite < f the pre- 
cautions and herculean labors of the sanitary author- 
ities, Is on the increase and the fears of an" epidemic 
grow with every hour. 

"It is our impression," said Dr. T. L. White, assist 
ant to the State Board of Health, this morning, " that 
there is going to be great sickness here within the 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 381 

next week. Five cases of malignant diphtheria wt^re 
located this morning on Bedford street, and as they 
were in different houses they mean five starting points 
for disease. All this talk about the dangers of 
epidemic is not exaggerated, as many suppose, but is 
founded upon all experience. There will be plenty of 
typhoid fever and kindred diseases here within a week 
or ten days in my opinion. The only thing that has 
saved us thus far has been the cool weather. That 
has now given place to summer weather, and no one 
knows what the next few days may bring forth. 
Fresh Meat and A'eg-etaMes TV' anted. 

Even among the workmen there is already dis- 
cernible a tendency to diarrhoea and dysentery. The 
men are living principally upon salt meat, and thrre is 
a lack of vegetables. I have been here since Sunday 
and have tasted fresh meat but once since that time. 
1 am only one of the many. Of course the worst has 
passed for the physicians, as our arrangements are now 
perfected and each corps will be relieved from time to 
time. Twenty more physicians arrived from Pittsburgh 
this morning and many of us will be relieved to-day. 
But the opinion is general among the medical men 
that there will be more need for doctors in a week 
hence than there is now. 

Sanitary Work. 

Dr. R. L. Sibbel, of the State Board of Health, is 
in charge of Sanitary Headquarters. "Y\'e are using 
every precaution known to science," said he this morn- 
ittg, " to prevent the possibihty of epidemic. Our 



'382 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

labors here liave not been confined to any particular 
channel, but have been extended in various directions. 
Disinfectants, of course, are first in importance, and 
they have been used with no sparing hand. The 
prompt cremation of dead animals as fast as discovered 
is another thing we have insisted upon. The immedi- 
ate erection of water-closets throughout the ruins for 
the workmen was another work of the greatest sani- 
tary importance that has been attended to. They, too, 
are being disinfected at frequent intervals. We have 
a committee, too, that superintends the burial of the 
victims at the cemeteries. It is of the utmost import- 
ance in this wholesale interment that the corpses should 
be interred a safe distance beneath the surface in order 
that their poisonous emanations may not find exit 
through the crevices of the earth. 

"Another committee is making a house-to-house 
inspection throughout the stricken city to ascertain 
the number of inhabitants in each standing house, the 
number of the sick, and to order the latter to the hos- 
pital whenever necessary. One great danger is the 
overcrowding of houses and hovels, and that is being 
prevented as much as possible by the free use of 
tents upon the mountain side. So far there is but 
little contagious disease, and we hope by diHgent and 
systematic efforts to prevent any dangerous out- 
break." 

Dodging Responsibility. 

It is now rumored that the South Fork Hunting and 
Fishing Club is a thing of the past. No one admits 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 383 

his membership and it is doubtful if outside the cot- 
tage owners one could find more than half a dozen 
members in the city. Even some of the cottage 
^owners will repudiate their ownership until it is known 
whether or not legal action will be taken against 
them. If it were not for the publicity which might 
follow one could secure a transfer of a large number 
of shares of the club's stock to himself, accompanied 
by a good sized roll of money. It is certain that the 
cottage owners cannot repudiate their ownership. 
None of them, however, will occupy the houses this 
summer. 

The Club Found Guilty. 

Coroner Hammer, of Westmoreland county, who 
has been sitting on the dead found down the river at 
Nineveh, concluded his inquests to-day. His trip to 
South Fork Dam on Wednesday has convinced him 
that the burden of this great disaster rests on the 
shoulders of the South Fork Hunting and Fishing 
Club of Pittsburgh. The verdict was written to-night, 
but not all the jury were ready to sign it. It finds the 
South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club responsible for 
the loss of life because of gross, if not criminal negli- 
gence, and of carelessness in making repairs from 
time to time. This would let the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road Company out from all blame for allowing the 
dam to fail so badly out of repair when they got con- 
trol of the Pennsylvania Canal and abandoned it. 
The verdict is what might have been expected after 
Wednesday's testimony. 



384 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Mr. A. M. Wellington, with P. Burt, associate editor 
of the Enfjincerhig News, of New York, has just com- 
pleted an examination of the dam which caused the 
great disaster here. Mr. Wellington states that the 
dam was in every respect of very inferior construction, 
and of a kind wholly unwarranted by good engineering 
practices of thirty years ago. Both the original and 
reconstructed dams were of earth only, with no heart 
wall, but only riprapped on the slopes. 

The original dam, however, was made in dammed and 
watered layers, which still show distinctly in the wrecked 
dam. The new end greatly added to its stability, but 
it was to all appearances simply dumped in like an or- 
dinary railroad fill, or if rammed, the wreck shows no 
evidence of the good effect of such work. Much of 
the old part is standing intact, while the adjacent parts 
of the new work are wholly carried off. There was no 
central wall of puddle or masonry either in the new or 
old dam. It has been the invariable practice of en- 
gineers for thirty or forty years to use one or the other 
in buildinof hiofh dams of earth. It is doubtful if there 
is a single dam or reservoir in any other part of the 
United States of over fifty feet in height which lacks 
this central wall. 

Ig-norance or Carelessness. 

The reconstructed dam also bears the mark of great 
ignorance or carelessness in having been made nearly 
two feet lower in the middle than at the ends. It 
should rather have crowned in the middle, which 
would have concentrated the overflow, if it should 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 385 

occur, at the ends instead of in the centre. Had the 
break begun at the ends the cut of the water would 
have been so gradual that little or no harm might 
have resulted. Had the dam been cut at the ends 
when the water began running over the centre the 
sudden breaking would have been at least greatly 
diminished, possibly prolonged, so that little harm 
would have resulted. The crest of the old dam had 
not been raised in the reconstruction of 1881. The 
old overflow channel through the rock still remains, 
but owing to the sag of the crest in the middle of the 
dam only five and a half feet of water in it, instead of 
seven feet, was necessary to run the water over the 
crest. 

And the rock spillway, narrow at best, had been 
further contracted by a close grating to prevent the 
escape of fish, capped by a good-sized timber, and in 
some slight degree also as a trestle footbridge. The 
original discharge pipe indicates that it was made about 
half earth and half rock, but if so there was little evi- 
dence of it in the broken dam. The riprapping was 
merely a skin on each face with more or less loose 
spauls mixed with the eaFth. The dam was seventy- 
two feet above water, tv/o to one inside slope, one and 
a half to one outside slope and twenty feet wide on 
top. The rock throughout was about one foot below 
the surface. The earth was pretty good material for 
such a dam, if it was to be built at all, being of a clayey 
nature, making good puddle. To this the fact of it 
standing intact since 1881 must be ascribed, as no 
25 



386 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

engineer of standing would have ever tried to so con- 
struct it. The fact that the dam was a reconstructed 
one after twenty years' abandonment made it especi- 
ally hard on the older part of the dam to withstand 
the pressure of the water. 

Elder Thouglit it was Safe. 

Cyrus Elder, general counsel for the Cambria Iron 
Company and a wealthy and prominent, citizen of 
Johnstown, lost a wife and daughter in the recent 
disaster and narrowly escaped with his own life. 

"When the rebuilding of the dam was begun some 
)ears ago," he said, "the president of the Cambria 
Jron Company was very seriously concerned about it, 
and wished, if possible, to prevent its construction, 
-referring the matter to the solicitor of the company. 
A gentleman of high scientific reputation, who was 
then one of the general engineers, Inspected the 
'dam. He condemned several matters in the way of 
construction and reported that this had been changed 
<and that the dam was perfectly safe. My son, George 
R. Elder, was at that time a student in the Troy Poly- 
itechnic University. 

His professor submitted a problem to the class 
which he immediately recognized as being the ques- 
tion of the safety of the South Fork dam. He sent it 
to me at the time in a letter, which, of course, is lost, 
with everything else I possessed, in which he stated 
that the verdict of the class was that the dam was safe. 
T^he president of the Cambria Iron Company being 
istill anxious, thought it might be good policy to have 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 38f 

some one inside of the fishing and hunting corporation 
owning the dam. The funds of the company were 
therefore used to purchase two shares of its stock, 
which were placed in the name of D. J. Morrell. 
After his death these shares were transferred to and 
are still held by me, although ihey are the property of 
the Cambria Iron Company. They have not been 
sold because there was no market for them." 
Untold Volumes of Water. 

So far as the Signal Service is concerned, the 
amount of rainfall in the region drained by the Con- 
emaugh river cannot be ascertained. The Signal Ser- 
vice authorities here, to whom the official there re- 
ported, received only partial reports last Friday! 
There had been a succession of rains nearly all of last 
week. The last rain commenced Thursday evening 
and was unusually severe, 

Mrs. H. M. Ogle, who had been the Signal Service 
representative in Johnstown for several years and also 
manager of the Western Union office there, tel- 
egraphed at eight o'clock Friday morning that the 
river marked 1 4 feet, rising ; a rise of 1 3 feet in twen- 
ty-four hours. At eleven o'clock she wired : ** River 
20 feet and rising, higher than ever before; water in 
first floor. Have moved to second. River gauges 
carried av/ay. Rainfall, 2 3-10 inches." At twenty- 
seven minutes to one P. M., Mrs. Ogle wired : "At 
this hour north wind ; very cloudy ; water still rising." 

Nothing more was heard from her by the bureau, 
but at the Western Union office here later in the after- 



S88 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

noon she commenced to tell an operator that the dam 
had broken, that a flood was coming, and before she 
had finished the conversation a singular click of the 
instrument announced the breaking of the current. A 
moment afterward the current of her life was broken 
forever. 

Sergeant Stewart, in charge of the bureau, says that 
the fall of water on the Conemaugh shed at Johnstown 
up to the time of the flood was probably 25-10 inches. 
He believes it was much heavier in the mountains. 
The country drained by the little Conemaugh and 
Stony Creek covers an area of about one hundred 
square miles. The bureau, figuring on this basis and 
2 5-10 inches of rainfall, finds that 464,640,000 cubic 
feet of water was precipitated toward Johnstown in its 
last hours. This is independent of the great volume 
of water in the lake, which was not less than 250,000,- 
000 cubic feet. 

' Water Enou§rli to Cover the Valley. 

It is therefore easily seen that there was ample 
water to cover the Conemaugh Valley to the depth of 
from ten to twenty-five feet. Such a volume of water 
was never known to fall in that country in the same 
time. 

Colonel T. P. Roberts, a leading engineer, estimates 
that the lake drained twenty-five square miles, and 
gives some interesting data on the probable amount 
of water it contained. He says: — "The dam, as I 
understand, was from hill to hill about one thousand 
feet long and about eighty-five feet high at the highest 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 389 

point. The pond covered above seven hundred acres, 
at least for the present I will assume that to be the 
case. We are told also that there was a waste weir 
at one end seventy-five feet wide and ten feet below 
the comb or top of the dam. Now we are told that 
with this wier open and discharging freely to the ut 
most of its capacity, nevertheless the pond or lake 
rose ten inches per hour until finally it overflowed the 
top, and, as I understand, the dam broke by being 
eaten away at the top. 

Calculating the Amount of Water. 
" Thus we have the elements for very simple calcu- 
lation as to the amount of water precipitated by the: 
flood, provided these premises are accurate. To raise 
700 acres of water to a height of ten feet would re- 
quire about 300,000,000 cubic feet of water, and 
while this was rising the waste dam would discharge 
an enormous volume — it would be difficult to say just 
how much without a full knowledge of the shape of 
its side walls, approaches and outlets — but if the rise 
required ten hours the waste river might have dis- 
charged perhaps 90,000,000 cubic feet. We would 
then have a total of flood-water of 390,000,000 cubic 
feet. This would indicate a rainfall of about eight 
inches over the twenty-five square miles. As that 
much does not appear to have fallen at the hotel and 
dam it is more than likely that even more than eight 
inches were precipitated in the places further up. 
These figures I hold tentatively, but I am much in- 
clined to believe that there was a cloud burst." 



390 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Six thousand men were at work on the ruins to-day. 
They are paid two dollars a day, and have to earn it. 
The work seems to tell very little, however, for the mass 
of debris is simply enormous. The gangs have cleaned 
up the streets pretty thoroughly in the main part of 
the city, from which the brick blocks were swept like 
card houses before a breeze. The houses are pulled 
apart and burned in bonfires. Nowhere is anything 
found worth saving. 

It is not probable that the mass of debris at the 
bridge, by which the water is tainted, can be removed 
in less than thirty days with the greatest force possible 
to work on it. That particular job is under the con- 
trol of the State Board of Health. Every day adds 
to its seriousness. The mass is being cleared by dyna- 
mite at the bridge where the current is strongest, and 
the open place slowly grows larger. Not infrequently 
a body is found after an explosion has loosened the 
wreckage. 

So-called relief corps are still moving to and fro in 
the city, but the most serious labor of many of the 
members is to carry a bright yellow badge to aid 
them in passing the guards while sight-seeing. The 
militia men are little better than ornamental. The 
guards do a good deal of changing, to the annoyance 
of workers who want to get into the lines, but they 
rarely stop any one. The soldiers do a vast deal of 
loafing. A photographer who had his camera ready 
to take a view among the ruins was arrested to-day 
and made to work for an hour by General Hastini3' 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 391 

order. When his stent was done he did not linger, 
but went at once. 

Signs of Improvement. 

"What is the condition of the valley now?" I asked 
Colonel Scott. 

"It is improving with every hour. The perfect or- 
ganization which has been effected within the past day 
or two has gradually resolved all the chaos and con- 
fusion into a semblance of order and regulation." 

"Are many bodies being discovered now?" 

"Very few; that is to say, comparatively few. Of 
course, as the v/aters recede more and more between 
the banks, we have come upon bodies here and there, 
as they were exposed to sight. The probabilities are 
that there will be a great many bodies yet discovered 
under the rubbish that covers the streets, and our 
hope and expectation is that the majority of all the 
dead may be recovered and disposed of in a Christian 
manner." 

" How about the movement to burn the rubbish, 
bodies and all?" 

"I do not think that will be done — at least only as 

a last extremity. While there is great anxiety in 

regard to the sanitaty condidon, all possible precautions 

are being taken, and we hope to prevent any disease 

until we shall have, time to thoroughly overhaul the 

wreck. 

Consideration for the Dead. 

" The greatest consideration is being given to this 
matter of the recovery of the dead and treatment of 



392 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

the bodies after discovery. I think an impression has 
gone abroad that the dead are being handled here very 
much as one would handle cord wood, but this is a 
great mistake. As soon as possible after discovery 
they are borne from public gaze and taken to the 
Morgue, where only persons who have lost relatives or 
friends are admitted. Of course the general exclu- 
sion is not applied to attendants, physicians and repre- 
sentatives of the press, but it is righteously applied to 
careless sight-seers. We have no room for sight-seers 
in Johnstown now. It is earnest workers and laborers 
we want, and of these we can hardly have too many." 
Speculating: iu Disaster. 

Sorne long headed men are trying to make a neat 
little stake quietly out of the disaster. A syndicate 
has been formed to buy up as much real estate as 
possible in Johnstown, trusting to get a big block as 
they got one to-day, for one-third of the valuation 
placed on it a week ago. The members of the syndi- 
cate are keeping very much in the background and 
conducting. their business through a local agent. 

I asked Adjutant General Hastings to-day what he 
thouoflit of the situation. 

•' It is very good so far as reported," was the reply. 
" Bodies are being gradually recovered all the time,^ 
but of course not in the large number of the first few- 
days. Last night we arrested several ghouls that were 
wandering amid the wreck on evil intent, and they 
were promptly taken to the guard house. This morn- 
ing they were given the choice of imprisonment or 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 393 

going to work at two dollars a day, and they promptly 
chose the latter. We are getting along very well in 
our work, and very little tendency to lawlessness, I 
am happy to say, is observed." 

Succor for tlie Livingr. 

The Red Cross flag now flies over the society's own 
camp beside the Baltimore and Ohio tracks, near the 
bridge to Kernville. The tents were pitched this 
morning and the camp includes a large supply tent, 
mess tent and offices. Miss Clara Barton, of Wash- 
ington, is, of course, in charge, and the work is being 
rapidly gotten into shape. I found Miss Barton at 
the camp this morning. 

"The Red Cross Society will remain here," she 
said, V so long as there is any work to do. There is 
hardly any limit to what we will do. Much of the 
present assistance that has been extended is, of 
course, impulsive and ephemeral. When that is over 
there will still be work to do, and the Red Cross So- 
ciety will be here to do it. We are always the last to 
leave the field. 

"We need and can use to the greatest advantage 
all kinds of supplies, and shall be glad to receive 
them. Money is practically useless here as there is 
no place to buy what we need." 

Dr. J. Wilkes O'Neill, of Philadelphia, surgeon of 
the First Regiment, is here in charge of the Philadel- 
phia division of the Red Cross Society. He is assisted 
by a corps of physicians, nurses and attendants. 
Within two hours after establishing the camp this 



394 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

morning about forty cases, both surgical and medical, 

were treated. Diphtheria broke out in Kernville 

to-day. Eleven cases were reported, eight of which 

were reported to be malignant. The epidemic is sure 

to extend. There are also cases of ulcerated tonsil- 

itis. The patients are mostly those left homeless by 

the flood and are fairly well situated in frame houses. 

The doctors do not fear an epidemic of pneumonia. 

The Red Cross Society has established a hospital 

camp in Grubbtown for the treatment of contagious 

diseases. An epidemic of typhoid fever is feared, two 

cases having appeared. The camp is well located in 

a pleasant spot near fine water. It is supplied with 

cots, ambulances and some stores. They have an 

ample supply of surgical stores, but need medical 

stores badly. 

Serving Out the Rations. 

At the commissary station at the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road depot there was considerable activity. A crowd 
of about one thousand people had gathered about the 
place after the day's rations. The crowd became so 
great that the soldiers had to be called up to guard the 
place until the Relief Committee was ready to give out 
the provisions. Several carloads of clothing arrived 
this morning and was to be disposed of as soon as 
possible. The people were badly in need of clothing, 
as the weather had been very chilly since Saturday. 

B. F. Minnimun, awealthy contractor of Springfield, 
Ohio, arrived this forenoon with a despatch from Gov- 
ernon Foraker offering 2,000 trained laborers for 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 395 

Johnstown, to be sent at once if needed. The despatch 
further stated that if anything else was needed Ohio 
stood ready to respond promptly to the call. 
What Clara Barton Said. 

"It is like a blow on the head ; there are no tears, 
they are stunned ; but, ah, sir, I tell you they will 
awake after awhile and then the tears will flow down 
the hills of this valley from thousands of bleeding 
hearts, and there will be weeping and wailing such as 
never before." 

That is what Clara Barton, president of the National 
Red Cross, said this afternoon as she stood in a plain 
black gown on the bank of Stony Creek directing the 
construction of the Red Cross tents, and she looked 
motherly and matronly, while her voice was trembling 
with sympathy. 

" You see nothing but that dazed, sickly smile that 
calamity leaves," she went on, " like the crazy man 
wears when you ask him, 'How came you here?' 
Something happened, he says, that he alone knows ; 
all the rest is blank to him. Here they give you that 
smiie, that look and say ' I lost my father, my mother, 
my sisters,' but they do not realize it yet. The Red 
Cross intends to be here in the Conemaugh Valley 
when the pestilence comes to them, and we are 
making ready with all our heart, with all our soul, 
with all our strength. The militia, the railroad, the 
Relief Committees and everybody is working for us. 
The railroad has completely barricaded us so that 
none of our cars can be taken av/ay by mistake." 



396 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



When the great wave of death swept through Johns- 
town the people who had any chance of escape ran 
hither and thither in every direction. They did not 
have any definite idea where they were going, only that 
a crest of foaming waters as high as the housetops 
was roaring down upon them through the Conemaugh 
and that they must get out of the way of that. Some 




A WOMAN'S BODY LODGED IN A TREE. 



in their terror dived into the cellars of their houses 
and clambered over the adjoining roofs to places of 
safety. But the majority made for the hills, which girt 
the town like giants. Of the people who went to the 
hills, the water caught some in its whirl. 

The others clung to trees and roots and pieces of 
debris which had temporarily lodged near the banks, 
and managed to save themselves. These people either 



THE JOHN-STOWN HORROR. 397 

Stayed out on the hills wet, and in many instances 
walked all night, or they managed to find farmhoiises 
which sheltered them. There was a fear of going lack 
to the vicinity of the town. Even the people whose 
houses the water did not reach abandoned their homes 
and began to think of all of Johnstown as a city buried 
beneath the water. But in the houses v/hich vv^ere thus 
able to afford shelter there was not food enough for 
all. Many survivors of the flood went hungry until 
the first relief supplies arrived from Pittsburgh. 
Striig-giing to Live Ag^aiii. 

From all this fright, destitution and exposure is 
coming a nervous shock, culminating in insanity, 
pneumonia, fever and all • the other forms of disease. 
When these people came back to Johnstown on the 
day after the wreck of the town they had to live in 
sheds, barns and in houses which had been but par- 
tially ruined. They had to sleep without any covering, 
in their wet clothes, and it took the liveliest kind of 
skirmishing to get anything to eat. Pretty soon a 
citizen's committee was established, and nearly all the 
male survivors of the flood were immediately sworn in 
as deputy sheriffs. They adorned themselves with tin 
stars, which they cut out of pieces of the sheets of 
metal in the ruins, and pieces of tin with stars cut out 
of them are now turning up continually, to the 
surprise of the Pittsburgh workmen who are endeavor- 
ing to get the town in shape. 

The women and children were housed, so far as 
possible, in the few houses still standing, and some 



398 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

idea of the extent of the wreck of the town may be 
gathered from the fact that of 300 prominent buildings 
only 16 are uninjured. For the first day or so people 
were dazed by what had happened, and for that matter 
they are dazed still. They went about helpless, 
making vague inquiries for their friends, and hardly 
feeling the desire to eat anything. Finally the need 
of creature comforts overpowered them and they woke 
up to the fact that they were faint and sick. 
Itcfugees in Their Own City. 

Now this is to some extent changed by the arrival 
of tents and by the systematic military care for the 
suffering. But the daily life of a Johnstown man who 
is a refugee in his own city is still aimless and wander- 
ing. His property, his home, in nine cases out of ten, 
his wife and children, are gone. The chances are that 
he has hard work to find the spot where he and his 
family once lived and were happy. He meditates sui- 
cide, and even looks on the strangers who have flocked 
in to help him and to put him and his town on their 
feet again with a kind of sullen anger. He has 
frequent conflicts with the soldiers and with the 
sight-seers, and he is crazy enough to do almost any- 
thing. 

The first thing that Johnstown people do in the 
morning is to go to the relief stations and get some-^ 
thing to eat. They go carrying big baskets, and their 
endeavor is to get all they can. There has been a 
new system every day about the manner of dispensing 
the food and clothing to the sufierers. At first the 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 399 

supplies were placed where people could help them- 
selves. Then they v^^ere placed in yards and handed 
to people over the fences. Then people had to get 
orders forvvhat they wanted from the citizens' commit- 
tee and their orders were filled at the diiferent relief 
stations. Now the matter has been arrano-ed this 
way, and probably finally. The whole m.atter of rt*- 
ceiving and dispensing the relief supplies has been 
placed in the hands of the Grand Army of the Repub- 
lic men. 

"Women Too Proud, to Beg-. 

The Grand Army men have made the Adams Street 
Relief Station a central relief station and all the others 
at Kernvilie, the Pennsylvania depot, Cambria City and 
Jackson and Somerset Streets, sub-stations. The idea 
is to distribute supplies to the sub-stations from the 
central station and thus avoid the jam of crying and 
excited people at the committee's headquarters. The 
Grand Army men have appointed a committee of 
women to assist In their work. The women go from 
house to house ascertaining the number of people 
lost from there In the flood and the exact needs of the 
people.. It was found necessary to have some such 
committee as this, for there were women actually 
star\dng who were too proud to take their places in 
lines with the other women with baofs and baskets. 
Some of these people were rich before the fiood. 

Now they are not worth a dollar. One man who 
was reported to be worth ^100,000 before the flood 
now Is penniless and has to tak'e his place In the 



400 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

line along with others seeking the necessaries of 
life. 

Though the Adams street station is now the central 
relief station, the most imposing display of supplies is 
made at the Pennsylvania Railroad freight and passen- 
ger depots. Here on the platform and in the yards 
are piled up barrels of flour in long rows three and 
four barrels high. Biscuits in cans and boxes by the 
carload, crackers under the railroad sheds in bins, 
hams by the hundred strung on poles, boxes of soap 
and candles, barrels of kerosene oil, stacks of canned 
goods and things to eat of all sorts and kinds are 
here to be seen. 

No Fear of a Food Famine. 

The same sight is visible at the Baltimore and Ohio 
road and there is now no fear of a food famine in 
Johnstown, though of course everybody will have to 
rough it for weeks. What is needed most in this line 
are cooking utensils. Johnstown people want stoves, 
kettles, pans, knives and forks. All the things that 
have been sent so far have been sent with the evident 
idea of supplying an instant need, and that is right 
and proper. But it would be well now if instead of 
some of the provisions that are sent, cooking utensils 
should arrive. Fifty stoves arrived from Pittsburgh 
this morning, and it is said more are coming. At 
both the depots where the supplies are received and 
stored a big rope line encloses them in an impromptu 
yard so as to give room to those having the supplies 
in charge to walk around and see what they have got. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 401 

On the inside of this line, too, stalk back and forth the 
soldiers with their rifles on their shoulders, and by the 
side of the lines pressing against the ropes there 
stands every day from daylight until dawn a crowd of 
women with big baskets who make piteous appeals to 
the soldiers to give them food for. their children at 
once before the order of the relief committee. 
Where Deatli Rules. 

The following letters from a young woman to her 
mother, written immediately after the disaster at Johns- 
town from her home in New Florence, a few miles 
west of that place, though not intended for publica- 
tion, picture in graphic manner the agony of suspense 
sustained by those who escaped the flood, and give 
side pictures of the scenes following the disaster. 
They were received in Philadelphia : 
Hours of Suspense. 

New Florence, Pa. — My Darling Mother : I am 
n'^arly crazed, and thought I would try and be quiet 
and write to you, as it always comforts me to feel you 
are near your child, though many miles are now 
between us. I have said my prayers over and over 
again all day long, and to-night I am going to spend 
in the watch-tower, and am trying to be quiet and 
brave, although my heart is just wrung with anguish. 
Andrew sent me Vv^ord from Johnstown this afternoon 
about half-past three he was safe and would be home 
shortly. Well, he has never come, and I have had 
many reports of the work train, but no one seems to 
know anything definite about him. I have telegraphed 
26 



402 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

and telegraphed, but no news yet, and all I can find 
out is he was seen on the bridge just before it went 
down. I am trying to be brave. 

Good News at liast. 

Sunday Morning. 
You see, dearest mother, I could not write, and now 
I am happy, though tired, for Andrew is home and 
safe, and I thank God for the great mercy he has 
shown his child. I won't dwell on my anxiety, it can 
better be imagined than described. From the letter I 
had from him at Johnstown, written at 9 A, M. Friday, 
until 6.30 last evening, I never knew whether he was 
living or dead. Thomas, our man, brought the news. 
God bless him, and it nearly cost him his life to do it, 
poor man. Andrew got separated from the party, 
and was close to the bridge when it was carried away, 
but escaped by going up the mountain. He tried to 
signal to his men he was safe, but could not make 
them see him, nor could those men that were with 
liim ; all communication was impossible. Thomas left 
him at nine o'clock Friday night on the mountain and 
tried to get home. He got a man to ferry him across 
the river above Johnstown, and the boat was upset, 
but all managed to get ashore, and Thomas walked 
all night and all yesterday, and came straight to me 
and told me my husband was safe, and an hour later 
I had a telegram from Andrew. He had walked from 
the Conemaugh side to Bolivar, The bridge at Nih- 
'cveh was the only bridge left standing. He took the 
ifirst train home from Bolivar and got home about 9.30. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 403 

I telegraphed you in the morning, or rather Uncle 
Clem, that I was safe and Andrew reported safe, 
though now they tell me every one here thought he 
was lost and Thomas with him. Thomas's wife was 
met at the station and informed of his death by some 
of the men, and six hours afterwards Thomas came 
home, yet more dead than alive, poor man. It is very 
hard to write, as all the country people and men have 
been here to tell me how glad they are *T got my 
husband safely back, and that I am a powerful sight 
lucky young woman." Well, mother darling, make 
your mind easy about your children now. Andrew is 
safe and well, though pretty well exhausted, and his 
feet are so sore and swollen he can hardly stand, and 
can't wear anything but rubbers, as his mountain shoes 
he cut to pieces. He left early this morning, but will 
be back to-night. I cannot begin to tell you of the 
horrors, as the papers do not half picture the distress. 
New Florence was not flooded, though some of the 
people left the place on Friday night and went up 
on Squirrel Hill. 

Scenes at the River. 

I went down to the river once, and that was enough, 
as I knew Andrew would not like me to see the 
sorrow, for which there was no help. I went just 
after the bridge fell, saw Centreville flooded and the 
people make a dash for the mountain. Yesterday 
two hundred and three bodies were taken from the 
river near here, and yet every train takes away more. 
The freight cars have taken nothing but human freight^ 



404 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

aiid wagon load after wagon load of dead bodies have 
been rieht in front of the house. There was a child 
about Nellie's age, with light hair, dead in the wagon, 
With her hands clasped, saying her prayers, and her 
blue eyes staring wide open. By her side lay a man 
with a pipe In his mouth, naked children, and a woman 
with a baby at her breast. Oh, the terror on their 
faces. Two women and three men were rescued 
here, and a German family of mother, four children 
and father. I had them all on my hands to look after ; 
no one could make them understand, and how I ever 
managed it I don't know, but I did. They lost two 
children and their home, but had a little money and 
were going to his brother's, at Hazleton. They got 
here In the night and left at noon, and it would have 
done your heart good to see them eat. One was a 
baby five weeks old. 

Help Needed. 
• Now, mother, I want you to go around among the 
Tamlly and get me everything In the way of clothes 
you possibly can, and get Uncle Clem to express them 
to me. I should also like money, and as much as you 
can get can be used. I am pretty well cleaned out of 
everything, as all the cattle and stock have been lost 
and nothing can be bought here, and all I have in the 
way of provisions is some preserves, chocolate, coffee, 
olives and crackers. We can't starve, as we have 
the chickens. I got the last meat from the butcher's 
yesterday, and he said he didn't expect to have any 
more for a week, so I told Uncle Clem I would not 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 405 

mind having two hams from Pittsburgh, and was very 
grateful for his telegrarp. I telegraphed him in the 
morning ; also, Uncle White at Germantown, so that 
they might know I was all right, but from Auntie's 
telegram I judge Uncle Clem's telegrams were the 
only ones that got through. If I find I need provis- 
ions I will let you know, but do not think I will need 
anything for myself, and the poor are being fed by the 
relief supplies, and what is needed now is money and 
clothes. 

Helpers. 
There's not a house in the place that is not In 
trouble from the loss of some dear one, nor one that 
does not hold or shelter some one or more of the suf- 
ferers. Tell everybody anything you can get can be 
used, and by the time you get this letter I will know of 
more cases to provide for, so take everything you can 
get, and don't worry about me, for I am all right now 
that Andrew is safe. This letter has been written by 
instalments, as I have been interrupted so many times, 
so pardon the abruptness of it, and please send it to 
Germantown, as I have too much to do now. My 
hands and heart are both full. Milk is as scarce as 
wine, as the pasturage was all on the other side, and 
cows were lost, and bread is as scarce as can be, and, 
instead of a dozen eggs, we only get one a day. I am 
proud of New Florence, as all it has done to help the 
sufferers no one knows, and as for Mr. Bennett, he is 
one in a thousand. Mr. Hay's son has worked like a 
Trojan. Tell Cousin Hannah that the new tracks wi|l 



iOe THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

be sure to be straight, as Andrew will superintend the 
whole business. With heart full of love to one and 
all and a kiss to the children. Lovingly, 

Bett. 
The Awful After Scenes. 

New Florence, Sunday Night. 

My Darling Mother : This is my second letter to 
you to-day. It is after 1 1 o'clock, and one of the men 
has just brought me word that Andrew will be home, 
he thought, by i o'clock ; so I am waiting up for him, 
so as to give him his dinner, and I have been through 
so much I cannot go to bed until I know he is safe 
home again. I put him up a good lunch, and know 
he cannot starve. 

Oh the horrors of to-day! I have only had one 
pleasant Sunday here, and that was the one after we 
were married. I have had a very busy day, as I have 
been through our clothes, and routing out everything 
possible for the sufferers and the dead, and the cry to- 
day for linen sheets, etc., was something awful. I 
have given away all my underclothes, excepting my 
very best things — and all my old ones I made into 
face-cloths for the dead. To-day they took five litde 
children out of the water ; they were playing " Ring 
around a rosy," and their hands were clasped in a 
clasp which even death did not loosen, and their faces 
were still smiling. 

One man identified his wife among those who came 
ashore here, and Rose said that he was nearly crazy, 
and that her face was the most beautiful thing she ever 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 407 

saw, and that she had very handsome pearls in her 
ears and was so young looking. The dead are all 
taken from here to Johnstown and Nineveh and other 
places, where they will be most likely to be identified ; 
about thirty have been identified here and taken away. 
I feel hardened to a great deal, and feel God has been 
so merciful to me I must do all I can for the unfortu- 
nate ones. I hope soon to have some help from you 
all, for I have given willingly of my little and my means 
are exhausted. I expect we will have to live on ham 
and eggs next week, but we are thankful to have that, 
as I would rather live low and give all I can, than not 
to give. All I care about is that Andrew gets enough 
to eat, as he needs a great deal to keep his strength 
up, working as hard as he does. Now I will close as 
it is nearly time for him to be home. Lovingly, 

Bett. 
Feeding- tlie Hungry. 

There are over 30,000 people at Johnstown who 
must be fed from the outside world. Of these 18,000 
are natives of the town that a week ago had 29,50a 
inhabitants ; all the others are dead or have gone 
away. Over 12,000 people are here clearing the 
streets, burying the dead, attending the sick, and 
feeding and sheltering the homeless ; all these people 
have to be fed at least three times a day, for days are 
very long in Johnstown just now. They begin at five 
o'clock in the morning, two hours before the whistles 
in the half-mired Cambria Iron Company's building- 
blow, and end just about the time the sun is going 



408 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

dowri' If the people who are on the outside and who 
are engaged in the labor of love of sending the food 
that is keeping strength in Johnstown's tired arms and 
the clothing that is covering her nakedness could 
understand the situation as it is they would redouble 
their efforts. Johnstown cannot draw on the country 
immediately around about her, for that was drained 
days ago. To be safe, there should be a week's 
supply of food ahead. At no time has there been 
a day's supply or anything like it. 

A Crisis in the Commissary. 

Twice within the last forty-eight hours the commis- 
sary department at the Pennsylvania Railroad Depot, 
where nearly 10,000 people are furnished with food, 
have been in a state of mind bordering on panic. 
They had run out of food ; people who had trudged 
down the hill with expectant faces and empty baskets 
had to trudge back again with hearts heavy and bas- 
kets still empty. That was the case on Wednesday 
night. Then the Citizens' Committee had to send to 
the refugee camp, the smallest food station in the city, 
and take away 1500 loaves of bread. The bread 
supply in the central portion of the town had suddenly 
given out and there was a clamoring crowd demanding 
to be fed. 

The same thing happened again last night. It w^as 
not so bad as on the night before, but there were anx- 
ious faces enough among the men under the direction 
of Major Spangler, who realized the awful responsi- 
bility of providing the mouths of the thousands with 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 409 

food. The supply had given out, but fortunately not 
until almost everybody had been supplied. Telegrams 
announced that eight carloads of provisions had been 
shipped from the West and were somewhere in the 
line between Pittsburgh and Johnstown. At midnight 
nothing could be heard of them. The delay was mad- 
dening. If the food did not arrive it meant fully lo,- 
ooo breakfastless and possibly dinnerless people in 
Johnstown to-day, with consequent suffering and pos- 
sible disorder among the rough and rowdy element. 
Tlie Danger Tided Over. 

Before daylight the expected cars came in from 
Ohio and Pittsburofh and the danger was over for the 
time being. This serves, however, to show the peril- 
ous condition the town is in, living as it is in a hand- 
to-mouth fashion. It should be remembered that the 
only direct access to Johnstown from the West is by 
way of the Pennsylvania, which is handicapped as 
she has never been before, and from the East and 
South, of the Baltimore and Ohio. If the Pennsylva- 
nia were opened through to the East a steady stream 
of 200 cars already loaded for the sufferers would 
pour over the Alleghenies, but the Pennsylvania does 
not see light ahead much more clearly than yesterday. 
The terrible breaks and washouts will require days yet 
to repair, and supplies that come from the interior of 
the State must come by means of wagons. 
Crowding^ in tlie Supplies. 

The Baltimore and Ohio is piling the suppHes in to- 
day faster than the men can unload them. In the 



410 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

neighborhood of loo carloads were received. The 
Pennsylvania during to-day has handled something 
like twenty-eight carloads all told. In the way of food 
the articles most needed are fresh, salt meats, sugar, 
rice, coffee, tea, and dried and canned fruits. The 
supply of sugar gave out entirely to-day. Twenty 
thousand pounds of Cincinnati hams arrived to-day 
and they melted like 20,000 pounds of ice beneath the 
scorching heat of this afternoon's sun. Much of the 
clothing that is received here is new and serviceable, but 
thousands of pieces are so badly worn that, to use the 
words of General Axllne, of Ohio, who is doing noble 
service here with the thousands of other self-sacrificing 
men, " it is unfit to be worn by tramps." Many old 
shoes with the soles half torn off have been received. 
Shoes are badly needed at once or all Johnstown will 
be barefooted. 

Eighteen Carloads of Relief. 
Even in the rush of distribution the officials who 
have it in charge can find time to say a hearty word of 
praise for those towns which have contributed to the 
sufferers. Philadelphia's first installment was the first 
to arrive from the East, and more goods have been 
coming in steadily ever since. W. H. Tumblestone, 
the president of the Retail Grocers' Association of 
P^ennsyiva^Ia, who was appolntedfirst lieutenant of the 
Philadelphia relief by the Mayor, arrived here first. 
He set at work handling cofifins, but as soon as the 
first freight car of goods arrived he was put in charge 
of their distribution and has been working like tliree 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 411 

men ever since. The eight freight cars from Philadel- 



■/4 ^ 




DISTRIBUTING CLOTHING AND OTHER SUPPLIES. 



phia which arrived with the relief party on Monday, at 
4 o'clock, were distributed from a great storehouse at 



412 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

the terminus of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The 
goods are carried in bulk from the cars to the ware- 
house by a gang of twenty-eight men, who are identi- 
fied by red flannel hat-bands. When they fail to 
enthuse over their work Mr. Tumblestone gets off his 
coat and shoves boxes himself. 

Distributing- Supplies. 

Inside the warehouse a score of volunteers and 
Pittsburgh policemen break open the boxes and pile 
the goods in separate heaps ; the women's clothing, 
the men's, the children's and the different sizes being 
placed in regular order. Then the barriers are opened 
and the crowd surges in like depositors making a run 
on a savings bank. The police keep good order and 
the ubiquitous Tumblestone and his assistants dole out 
the goods to all who have orders. Special orders call 
for stoves, mattrasses and blankets. 

If the Philadelphians could see the faces of the peo- 
ple they are helping before and after they have passed 
the distribution windows they would feel well repaid 
for their visible sympathy. Chairman Scott says the 
class of goods from Philadelphia have been of the 
highest quality. "We have been delighted with the 
thought and excellence of the selections and amiable 
nature of the contributions. The two miles of track 
lying between here and Morrellville are still blocked 
with cars stretched from one end to the other, and 
fresh arrivals are coming in daily over the Baltimore 
and Ohio." Although it is impossible to say how 
much has been received from Philadelphia, Mr. Turn- 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 413 

blestone says that so far as many as eighteen freight 
cars, each filled from the sides to the roof, have arrived 
from the Quaker City, and their contents have been 
distributed. 

How Rival Hotels w^ere Crushed Togretlier, 

The principal hotels of the town were bunched In a 
group about the corner of Main and Clinton streets. 
They were the Merchants' a large old-fashioned, 
three-story tavern, with a stable yard behind, a relic 
of staging days ; the Hurlburt House, the leading 
hotel of the place, a fine four-story brick structure 
with a mansard roof and all the latest wrinkles in fur- 
nishing inside and out ; the Fritz House, a narrow, 
four-story structure, with an ornate front, and the 
Keystone, a smaller hotel than any of the others. 

These few inns stood in the path of the flood. The 
Hurlburt, the largestandhandsomest, was absolutely ob- 
literated. The Keystone's ruin was next in completion. 
It stood across Clinton Street from Fritz's, and Landlord 
Charles West has not yet recovered from the surprise 
of seeing the rival establishment thrown bodily across 
the street against his second story front, tearing it 
completely out. 

After the water subsided It fell back upon the pave- 
ment in front of its still towering rival, and in the 
meantime Landlord West had saved mine host of the 
Keystone and his family from the roof which was 
thrust in his windows. 

Back of Fritz's there was a little alley, which made 
a course for a part of the torrent. Fully half a dozen 



414 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

houses were sent swimming in here. They crushed 
their way through the small hotel's outhouses straight 
to the rear of the Merchants', and sliced the walls off 
the old inn as a hungry survivor to-day cut a Philadel- 
phia cheese. You can see the interior of the rooms. 
The beds were swept out into the flood, but a lone- 
some wardrobe fell face downward on the floor and 
somehow escaped. There are bodies under the rear 
wall. How many is not known, but Landlord West, 
of Fritz's, says he is certain there were people on the 
rear porch of the Merchants'. The story of Land- 
lord West's rival being thrown into his front windows 
has its parallels. 

Colonel Higgins, the manager of the Cambria Club 
House, was in the third story of the building with his 
family. Suddenly a man was hurled by the torrent 
rapidly through the window. He was rescued, then 
fainted, and upon inspection was found to have a 
broken leg. The leg was bandaged and the man re- 
suscitated, and when this last c.ct of kindness was 
accomplished he said faintly : " This ain't so bad, I've 
been in a blow-up." 

A Cool Bequest. 

This remark showed the greatest sang froid known 
to be exhibited during the flood, but the most irrever- 
ent was that of an old man who was saved by E. B. 
Entworth, of the Johnson works. On Saturday morn- 
ing Mr. Entworth rowed to a house near the flowing 
debris at the bridge, and found a woman, with a 
broken arm, and a baby. After she had got into the 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 415 

boat she cried : " Come along, grandpap." Where- 
upon an old man, chilled but chipper, jumped up from 
the other side of the roof, slid down Into the boat, and 
ejaculated: "Gentlemen, can any of you give me a 
chew of tobacco ?" 

Scenes Amid the Ruins. 

One of the curious finds in the debris yesterday was 
two proofs from cabinet-size negatives of two persons 
— a man and a woman. The prints were found 
within two feet of each other in the ruins near the 
Merchants' Hotel. They were immediately recog- 
nized as portraits of Mamie Patton, formerly a Johns- 
town girl, and Charles DeKnight, once a Pullman 
palace car conductor. The two were found dying 
together in a room in a Pittsburgh hotel several 
months ago, the woman having shot the man and then 
herself. She claimed that he was her husband. The 
dress in w^hlch the picture showed her was the same 
that she wore when she killed DeKnight. 

Tracks that were Laid in a Hurry. 

If Pennsylvania Railroad trains ever ran over 
tougher-looking tracks than those used now through 
Johnstown It must have been before people began to 
ride on It. The section from the north end of the 
bridge to the railroad station has a grade that wabbles 
between 50 and 500 feet to the mile and jerks back 
and forth sideways as though laid by a gang of Intoxi- 
cated men on a dark night. When the first engine 
went over It everybody held his breath and watched 
to see It tumble. These eccentricities are being 



416 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Straightened out, however, as fast as men and broken 
stones can do it. 

The railroad bridge at Johnstown deserves attention 
beyond that which it is receiving on account of the way 
it held back the flood. It is one of the most massive 
pieces of masonry ever set up in this country. In a 
general way it is solid masonry of cut sandstone blocks 
of unusual size, the whole nearly 400 feet long, forty 
wide, and averaging about forty deep. Seven arches 
of about fifty feet span are pierced through it, rising 
to within a few feet of the top and leaving massive 
piers down to the rock beneath. As the bridge crosses 
the stream diagonally, the arches pierce the mass in a 
slanting direction, and this greatly adds to the heavy 
appearance of the bridge. There has been some dis- 
position to find fault with the bridge for being so 
strong, the idea being that if It had gone out there 
would have been no heaping up of buildings behind 
it, no fire, and fewer deaths. This is probably unfair, 
as there were hundreds of persons saved when their 
houses were stopped against the bridge by climbing 
out or being helped out upon the structure. If the 
bridge had gone, too, the flood would have taken the 
whole Instead of only half of Cambria City. 
Photographers Forced to "Work. 

The camera fiend has about ceased his wanderings. 
An order was Issued yesterday from headquarters to 
arrest and put to work the swarms of amateur photog- 
raphers who are to be found everywhere about the 
ruins. Those who will not work are to be taken 



TFIE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 417- 

uptown under guard. This order is issued to keep 
down the number of useless people and thus save the-, 
fast diminishing provisions for the workers. 

A man who stood on thebluff and saw the first w^ave: 
of the flood come down the valley tried to describe it. 
"I looked up," he said, "and saw something that, 
looked like a wail of houses and trees up the valley. 
The next moment Johnstown seemed coming toward 
me. It was lifted right up and in a minute was smash- 
ing against the bridge and the houses were flying Itii 
splinters across the top and into the water beyond.'" 

A 13-year-old girl, pretty and with golden hair,, 
wanders about from morsfue to morg-ue lookin«; for" 
ten of a family of eleven, she being the sole survi- 
vor. • ' . 

There were half a dozen bulldogs in one house^ 
that was heaped up in the wreck some distance above 
the bridge. They were loose among the debris, and' 
it is said by those who claim to have seen it that after' 
fighting among themselves they turned upon the peo- 
ple near them and were tearing and biting them untiii 
the flames swept over the place. 

Slow Time to Pittsburgh. 

Irregular is a weak word for the manner in which 
passenger trains run between this place and Pitts- 
burprh. The distance is seventy miles and the ordi- 
nary time is two hours. The train that left here at 
4.30 yesterday afternoon reached there at midnight. 
This is ordinarily good time nowadays. A passage ini 
five hours is an exceptional one. 
27 



418 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Engine 1309, the one that faced the flood below 
Conemaugh and stood practically unharmed, backed 
down to the station as soon as the tracks were laid up 
to where it stood and worked all xight. Only the oil 
cups and other small fittings, with the headlight, were 
broken. 

The superintendent of the Woodvale Woolen Mills, 
one of the Cambria Iron Company's concerns, was one 
of the very few fortunate ones in that little place. He 
.and all his family got into the flouring mill just below 
the woolen mill and upon the roof. The woolen mill 
was totally wrecked, though not carried away, and 
*he flouring mill was badly damaged, but the roof 
lield and all were saved. These two .parts of the 
•mill were the only buildings left standing in Wood- 
vale. 

A man in Kernville, on Friday last, had jet black 
hair, moustache and beard. That night he had a 
battle with the waters. On Saturday morning his 
hair and beard began to turn gray, and they are now 
well streaked with white. He attributes the change to 
his awful Friday night's experience. 
Wounds of the I>ead. 

It Is the impression of the medical corps and mili- 
tary surgeons who arrived here early in the week 
that hundreds, maybe thousands of men, women and 
• children were insensible to all horror on that awful 
.afternoon, just a week ago, before the waters of the 
valley closed in over them. Their opinion is based 
•on the fact that hundreds and bundreds of the bodies 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 410 

already brought to light are terribly wounded somt*^ 
where, generally on the head. In many instances "tin* 
wounds are sufficient in themselves to have caused 
death. 

The crashing of houses together in the first m«d 
rush of the flood with a force greater than the collision 
of railroad trains making fast time, and the hurling ol 
timbers, poles, towers and boulders through the air is 
believed to have caused a lesfion of deaths in an U\ 
stant, before the lost knew what was coming. Even 
the survivors bear testimony to this. 

Surgeon Foster, of the 14th Regiment, who wa's 
first to have charge of the hospital, tells how he trej^.tett 
long lines of men, women and children for wounds.too 
terrible to mention and they themselves know not hwvv 
it happened only that they fell In a moment. In coi*- 
nection with his experience he speaks of the tender, 
yet heroic, work of four Sisters of Mercy, two frojn 
Pittsburgh and two here, who went ahead of him dowti 
the ranks of the wounded with sponges, chloroforming 
the suffering, before his scalpel aid reached thervi. 
Sometimes there were a dozen victims ahead of. his 
knives. . - 

Once these sisters stopped, for the first time s^ow 
ing horror, by a great pile of dead children and. Infants 
on the river bank laid one on top of the other. By 
one man each little body was seized and die clothiai; 
quickly cut from it. Then he passed it to anojther, 
who washed It in the river. Then a diird man took it 
in the line of the dead. But tlie Sisters of Mercy saw 



420 ' THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

they were too late there, and passed on among the 
livincr. 

Most of the Pennsylvania Railroad passengers who 
left Pittsburgh for the East last Friday and were 
caught in the flood in the Conemaugh Valley reached 
Philadelphia in a long special train at 5 o'clock Friday 
morning, June 7th, after a week of adventure, peril 
and narrow escapes which none of them will ever 
forget. A few of their number who lost presence of 
mind when the flood struck the train were drowned. 
The survivors are unanimous in their appreciation of 
the kindness shown them by Pennsylvania officials, 
and in their praise of the hospitality and generosity ol 
the country folk, among whom they found homes for 
three days. The escapes In some instances seem 
miraculous. 

An hour before the flood the first section of the day 
express stopped at Conemaugh City, about ten miles 
below the dam at South Fork, on account of a wash- 
out farther up the valley. The second section of the 
express and another passenger train soon overtook 
the first -and half an hour before the dam broke all 
these trains stood abreast on the four-track road. 
The positions now occupied seems providential. If 
the railroad men had foreseen the disaster they could 
not have' shown greater prudence, for the engine of 
the first -section of the express, on the track nearest 
the mountain side, stood about a car's length ahead of 
the second. The engine of the third train came to a 
stQp a„ car's length behind the second and on the 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 421 

outer track, which was within a few feet of the swol- 
len Conemaugh River, stood a heavily laden freight 
train. 

When the flood came It struck the slantine front of 
the four locomotives. Most of the passengers had, in 
the meantime, escaped up the mountain side.- Three of 
the locomotives were carried down by the irresistible 
torrent, but the fourth turned on its side and was soon 
buried under sand, tree trunks and other debris. This 
served as a breakwater for the flood and accounts for 
the fact that the trains of cars were not reduced to 
kindling wood while the railroad roundhouse and its 
twelve locomotives, a little farther down the valley, 
was taken up bodily, broken into fragments and its 
mighty inmates carried like chips for miles down the 
valley. 

Weary Passeng^ers. 

From end to end of the train, upon its' arrival at 
Philadelphia, there was an aspect of absoliite exhaus- 
tion, varied in its expression according to the individ- 
ual. Phlegmatic men lay upon their backs, across the 
seats, with their legs dangling in the aisles. One might 
send them spinning round or toss their feet out of the 
passage, and their worn faces showed no more sign 
than if they were lifeless. Women lay swathed In 
veils and wraps, sometimes alone, sometimes huddled 
together, and sornetlmes guarded by the arms of their 
husbands — husbands who themselves had given way 
and slept as heavily as If dosed with narcotics. 

But here and there is the typical American girl, full 



422 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

of nerve. She is worn out, too, but sleeps only fit- 
fully, starting up at every sound and dropping uneas- 
ily off again. Now and then one encountered the 
man and woman of restless temperament, whose sleep- 
less eyes looked out thinking, thinking — thinking on 
the trees and grass and bushes, faintly showing form 
now in the gray light of the very earliest dawn. 
Childhood's Peaceful Sleep. 

In the midst of it all a girl of six or seven, with a 
light shawl thrown over her figure, slept as peacefully 
as if she lay in the comfortable embrace of her own 
crib at home. She was little Bertha Reed, who had 
been sent out from Chicago in the care of the conduc- 
tor on a trip to Brooklyn, where she was to meet her 
aunt. At Pittsburgh she was taken in charge by a 
Miss Harvey, a relative. She was a passenger on 
the Chicago limited, the last train to get safely across 
the bridge at South Fork. She was a model of 
patience and cheerfulness through all the discomforts 
and drawbacks of the voyage, and her innocent prattle 
made every man and woman love her. 

It might have been supposed that if one were to 
waken any of these sleeping passengers to obtain their 
names and ask them of the disaster they might surlily 
have resented it. But they didn't. Now and then one 
of them would half-sleepily hand out his ticket under the 
mistaken notion that the reporter was the conductor. 
Another shake brought them round and they 
answered everything as kindly as if the unavoidable 
breaking in upon their comfort were a matter of no 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 423 

concern whatever. Sometimes it would seem that 
great sorrow must have a chastening effect upon 

everyone. 

From All Parts of the World. 

It was a strange gathering altogether, and made 
one think again of the remark so often repeated in 
'* No Thoroughfare," " How small the world is." All 
the ends of the earth had sent their people to meet at 
the disaster, and the tide of human life flows on as 
recklessly as the current of any sea or river. Here 
weary, sleepy and sad, was Jacob Schmidt, of ,. Aspen, . 
Col. He had been a passenger on the Pittsburgh, 
day express. He was standing on the platform when 
the flood came and by a lurching of the car he was, 
thrown into the boiling- torrent. He manao^ed to seize- 
a floating plank and was saved, but all his money and 
other valuables were lost. That was a particularly 
hard loss to him, because he was on his way to South 
Africa to seek his fortune. Behind him was R. B. 
Jones, who had come from the other side of the 
globe; in particular from Sydney, Australia, and met 
the others at Altoona. He was on the way for a visit 
to his parents In York County. He was on the 
Chicago Limited and just escaped the danger. 

In a front car was Peter Sherman, of Pawtucket, 
R. I. He was tall and broad shouldered and his sun- 
browned face was shaded by a big soft hat. He was 
on his way from Texarkana, way down in Texas, and 
he too was at Conemaugh. He was a passenger on 
the first section of the day express. He had not slept 



424 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

a wink on the way down from Altoona, and he told 
his story spiritedly. He said : "I heard a voice in the 
car crying the reservoir is burst ; run for your lives ! 
I got up and made a rush for the door. A poor little 
cripple with two crutches sat in front of me and 
screamed to me to save him or he would be drowned. 
I grabbed him up under one arm and took his crutches 
with my free hand. As we stepped from the car the 
water was coming. I made my way up the hill toward 
a church. The water swooped down on us and was 
soon up to my knees. I tdld the cripple I could not 
carry him further ; that we should both be lost. He 
screamed to me again to save him, but the water was 
gaining rapidly on us. He had a grip of my arm, but 
finally let go, and I laid him, hopefully, on the wooden 
steps of a house. I managed to reach the high land 
just in time. I never saw the cripple afterwards, but 
I learned that he v/as drowned." 
A Great Loss. 
A tall, heavily built man, with tattered garments, 
walked along the platform with the help of a cane. 
His face was covered with a beard, and his head was 
bowed so that his chin almost touched his breast. One 
foot was partially covered by a cut shoe, while on the 
other foot he wore a boot from which the heel was 
missing. This was Stephen Johns, a foreman at the 
Johnson Steel Rail Works at Woodvale. He was a 
big, strong man, but his whole frame trembled as he 
said: " Yes, I am from Johnstown. Host my wife and 
three children there, so I thought I would leave." 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 425 

It was only by the greatest effort that Mr. Johns 
kept the tears back. He then told his experience in 
this way : "I was all through the war. I was at Fair 
Oaks, at Chancellorsville, in the Wilderness, and many 
other" battles, but never in my life was 1 in such a hot 
place as I was on Friday night. I don't know how I 
escaped, but here am I alone, wife and children gone. 
I was at the office of the company on Friday. We 
had been receiving telephonic messages all morning 
that the dam was unsafe. No one heeded them. I 
did not know anything about the dam. The book- 
keeper said there was not enough water up there to 
flood the first floor of the office. I thought he knew, 
so I didn't send my family to the hills. 

"I don't know what time It was in the afternoon 
that I saw the flood coming down the valley. I was 
standing at the gate. Looking up the valley I 
saw a great white crowd moving down .upon us. I 
made a dash for home to try to get my wife and child- 
ren to the hills. I saw them at the windows as I ran 
up to the house. That is the last time I ever saw their 
faces. No sooner had I got into the house than the 
flood struck the building. I was forced into the attic. 
It was a brick house with a slate roof. I had intended 
to keep very cool, but I suppose I forgot all about 

that. 

Swept Down tlie Stream. 

"It seemed a long time, but I suppose it was not 
more than a second before the house gave way and 
went tumbling down the stream. It turned over and 



42^ THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

over as It was washed along, I was under the water 
as often as I was above it. I could hear my wife and 
children praying, although I could not see them. I did 
not pray. They were taken and I was left for some 
purpose, I suppose. My house finally landed up 
against the stone railway bridge. I was then pinned 
down to the floor by a heavy rafter or something. 
Somehow or other I was lifted from the floor and 
thrown almost out upon the bridge. Then some peo- 
ple got hold of me and pulled me out and took me 
over to a brickyard. My eyes and nose were full of 
cinders. After I reached the brickyard I vomited fully 
a pint of cinders whicli* I had swallowed while coming 
through that awful stream of water. I can't tell you 
what it was like. No one can understand it unless he 
or she passed through it." 

"Did you find your wife and children .-* " 
"No. I searched for them all of Saturday, Sunday 
and Monday, but could find no trace of them. I think 
they must have been among those who perished in the 
fire at the bridge. I would have staid there and 
worked had it not been the place was so near my old 
home that I could not stand it. I thout^ht I would be 
better off away from there where I could not see any- 
thing to recall that horrible sight." 

How tlie Survivors Live. 
With a view of showing the character of living in 
and about Johnstown, how the people pass each day 
and what the conveniences and deprivations of domes- 
tic life experienced under the new order of things 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 427 

SO suddenly introduced by the flood are, an investigation 
of a house-to-house nature was made to-day. As a 
result, it was noted that the degrees of comfort varied 
with the people as the types of human nature. As 
remarked by a visitor: 

"The calamity has served to bring to the surface 
every phase of character in man, and to bring into 
development traits that had before been but dormant. 
Generally speaking all are on the same footing so far 
as need can be concerned. Whether houses remain- 
to them or not, all the people have to be fed, for even 
should, they have money, cash is of no account, pro- 
visions cannot be bought ; people who still have homes 
nearly all of them furnish quarters for some of the 
visitors. Militia officers, committeemen, workmen, 
&€., must depend upon the supply stations for food." 
At Prospect. 

The best preserved borough adjoining Johnstown is 
Prospect, with its uniformly built gray houses, rising 
tier upon tier against the side of the mountain, at the 
north of Johnstown. There are in the neighborhood 
of 150 homes here, and all look as if but one architect 
designed them. They are large, broad gabled, two- 
story affairs, with comfortable porches, extending all 
the way across the front, each being divided by an 
interior partition, so as to accommodate two families. 
The situation overlooked the entire shoe-shaped dis- 
trict, heretofore described. 

Nearly every householder in Prospect is feeding not 
only his own family, but from two to ten others, whom 



428 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

he has welcomed to share what he has. Said one of 
these *' We are all obliged to go to the general depart- 
ment for supplies, for we could not live otherwise. 
Our houses have not been touched, but we have given 
away nearly everything in the way of clothing, except 
what we have on. There were two little stores up 
here, but we purchased all they had long ago. It does 
not matter whether the people are rich or poor, they 
are all compelled to take their chances. In Prospect 
are the quarters of the Americus Club, of Pittsburgh, 
an organization which is widely spoken of as having 
distinguished itself by furnishing meals to any and 
every hungry person who applied." 
An Incident. 
As two newspaper men were about to descend the 
hill, after visiting a number of points, a little woman 
approached and made an inquiry about the running of 
trains. She was one of the survivors and wished to 
reach Clearfield, where her grown-up sons were. "I'd 
walk It if I could," she said, " but it's too far, and I'm 
too old now." She was living with her friends, who 
have taken care of her since her home was swept 

away. 

A Distributing Point. 

At the base of the long flight of vrooden steps that 
lead to Prospect is the path extending across to the 
Pennsylvania Railroad station. Here is one of the 
principal distributing points. Three times each day 
a remarkable sight is here to be witnessed. Along 
the track at the eastern end, from the station platform 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 429 

back as far as the freight house, standing upon railroad 
ties, resting upon piles of lumber, and trying to hold 
their places in the line of succession in any position 
possible, croAvds of people wait to be served. Aged, 
decrepid men and women and little girls and boys hold 
baskets, boxes, thi cans, wooden buckets, or any recep- 
tacle handy in which they may carry off provisons for 
the day. 

Sad Sights. 

The women have, many of them, tattered or ill-fitting 
clothing, taken at random when the first supply of 
this character arrived, their heads covered with thin 
shawls or calico sun shades. They stand there in the 
chilly morning wind that blows through the valley 
along the mountains, patiently waiting their turn at 
the provision table, making no complaint of cold feet 
and chilled bodies. In the line are people who, ten 
days ago, had sufficient of this world's goods to enable 
them to live comfortably the remainder of their lives. 
They are massed in solidly. 

Guards of soldiers stand at short intervals to keep 
them back and preserve the lines, and sentries march 
up and down the entire length of the station challeng- 
ing the approach of any one who desires to pass along 
the platform. For a distance of about one hundred 
feet to the railroad signal tower are piled barrels of 
flour, boxes of provisions, and supplies of all descrip- 
tions. Under the shed of the station an incongruous 
collection of clothing is being arranged to allow of 
convenient distribution. While they waited for the 



430 THE JOHNSTOWN HORKOR. 

signal to commence operations, a guard entered into 
conversation with a woman in the Hne. She was evi- 
dently telling a story of distress, for the guard looked 
about hastily to a spot where canned meats and bread 
were located and made a movement as if to obtain a 
supply for the woman, but the eyes of brother soldiers 
and a superior officer were upon him and he again 
assumed his position. It is said to be not unusual for 
the soldiers, under cover of dusk, to overstep their 
duty in order to serve some applicant w'ho, through 
age or lack of physical strength, is poorly equipped to 
bear the strain. All sorts of provisions are asked for. 
One woman asks boldly for ham, canned chicken, 
vegetables and flour. Another approaches timidly 
and would be glad to have a few loaves of bread and 
a little coffee. 

Ifo Discrimination. 

Before complete system was introduced complaint 
was made of discrimination by those dealing out sup- 
plies, but under the present order of things the 
endeavor is made to treat everybody impartially. 
Provisions are given out in order, so that imposition 
is avoided. It would seem that there could be no im- 
position in any case, however. The people who are 
.here, and who are able to get within the lines at all, 
have a reason for their presence, and this is not 
curiosity. They are here for anything but entertain- 
m.ent, and there is no possibility of purchasing sup- 
plies. All must needs apply at the commissary de- 
partment. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 431 

A big distributing point for clothing Is at the Bal- 
timore and Ohio Railroad station, in the Fourth Ward, 
known as Harpvllle, on the east bank of the Stony 
creek. A rudely constructed platform extends over a 
washed-out ditch, partially filled with debris. In the 
vicinity is a large barn and several smaller outhouses, 
thrown in a tumble-down condition. Piled against 
them are beams and rafters from houses smashed into 
kindling wood. All about the station are boxes, 
empty and full, scattered in confusion, and around and 
about these crowds are clustered as best they can. A 
big policeman stands upon a raised platform made of 
small boxes, and as he is supplied with goods from 
the station he throws about in the crowds socks, 
shoes, dresses, shirts, pantaloons, etc., guessing s.s 
rapidly as possible at proportion and speedily getting 
rid of his bundle. Around the corner, on a street 
running at right angles with the tracks,' is the pro- 
vision department. These two are sample stations. 
They are scattered about at convenient points, %^d 
number about ten in all. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

One Week: After tine Great Disaster. 

By slow degrees and painful labor the barren place 
where Johnstown stood begins again to look a little 
like the habitations of a civilized community. Daily a 
little is added to the cleared space once filled with the 
concrete rubbish of this town, daily the number of 
willing workers who are helping the town to rise 
again increases. To-day the great yellow plain which 
was filled with the best business blocks and resi- 
dences before the flood is covered with tents for sol- 
diers and laborers and gangs of men at work. The 
wrecks are being removed or burned up. Those 
houses which were left only partially destroyed are 
beginning to be repaired. Still, it Vv'ill be months, 
very likely years, before the pathway of the flood 
ceases to be perfectly plain through the town. Its 
boundaries are as plainly marked now as if drawn on 
a map ; where the flood went it left its ineffaceable 
track. Nearly one-half of the triangle in which 
Johnstown stood is plainly marked, one angle of the 
triangle pointing to the east and directly up the Cone- 
maugli Valley, from which the flood descended. Its 
eastern side was formed by the line of the river. 
The second angle pointed toward the big stone arch 
bridge, which played such an important part in the 

(432) 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 433: 

tragedy. The western ran along the base of the 
mountain on the bank of Stony Creek, and the thirdl 
angle was toward Stony Creek Valley. 

Miles of Building-s in the Wreck. 

Imagine that before the flood this triangle was thickly- 
covered with houses. The lower or northern part was- 
filled with solid business blocks, the upper or southern 
half with residences, for the most part built of wood- 
Picture this triangle as a mile and a half in its greatest 
length and three-quarters of a mile in its greatest 
breadth. This was the way Johnstown was ten days- 
ago. Now imagine that in the lower half of this, 
triangle, where the business blocks were, every object 
has been utterly swept away with the exception of 
perhaps seven scattered buildings. In their places is- 
nothing but sand and heaps of debris. Imagine that 
in the upper portion of this triangle the pathway of 
destruction has been clearly cut. Along the pathway 
houses have been torn to pieces, turned upside down,, 
laid upon their sides or twisted on their foundations- 
Put into the open space on the lower en J of the tri- 
angle the tents and the fires of burning rubbish and 
you will have the picture of Johnstown to-day. 
Unlieeded Warnings. 

The people had been warned enough about the 
dangers of their location. They had been told again 
and again that the dam was unsafe, and whenever the 
freshets were out there were stories and rumors of its 
probable breaking. The freshets had been high for 
many days before that fatal Friday. All the creeks 
28 



434 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

were over their banks and their waters were running 
on the streets. Cellars and pavements were flooded. 
Reports from the dam showed that it was holding 
back more water than at any other time in its history. 
A telegraph despatch early in the afternoon gave 
startling information about the cracks in the dam, but 
it was the old story of the wolf. They had heard it so 
often that they heard it this time and did not care. 

The first warning that the people had of their coming 

doom was the roar of the advancing wave. It rushed 

out of the valley at four o'clock 'in the afternoon with 

incredible swiftness. Those who saw it and are still 

:alive say that it seemed to be as high as an ordinary 

ihouse. It carried in its front an immense amount of 

ibattered wreckage, and over it hung a cloud of what 

::seemed to be fog, but was the dust from the buildings 

it had destroyed. Straight across the river it rushed 

upon the apex of the triangle. It struck the first 

houses and swept them away in fragments. The cries 

.and shrieks of the frightened people began to be 

heard above th« roar of the floods, and a few steps 

further the great wave struck some unusually solid 

structure. Its force right in the centre was already 

diminished. On these houses it split and the greater 

fpart of it went on diagonally across the triangle, 

•deflectinof somewhat toward the north and so on down 

rto the stone arch bridge. 

Nothing Could Withstand the Flood. 

Wherever it went the houses tumbled down as if 
ithey were built of cards. It was not alone die great 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 435 

volume of water, but the immense revolving mass of 
lumber it carried, that gave it an additional and terrific 
force, and houses, five bridges, railroad trains, boilers 
and factories were whirling furiously about. What 
could stand agrainst such an instrument of destruction 
as this ? It swept the triangle as clean as a board. It 
tore up pavements. It dug out railroad tracks, and 
twisted them into strange and fantastic shapes. It car- 
ried with it thousands of human beings, crushing them 
against the fragments, and drove their bodies into the 
thick mass of mud and sand which it carried at the 
bottom. It went on and on straight as an arrow, and 
piled masses of all it had gathered against and over 
the solid arches of the stone bridge. The bridge sus- 
tained the shock. How it did it engineers who have 
seen the effects and the marvellous strength of the 
flood in other places wonder. An immense raft of 
houses and lumber and trees and rubbish of every 
kind, acres in extent, collected here. 
Roasted in tSie Debris. 

In these houses were imprisoned people still alive, 
in numbers estimated at two or three thousand, tossed 
about in the whirling flood which was turned into 
strange eddies by the obstruction it had met In 
some way not explained a jfire broke out. 

The frame structures packed in closely together 
were like so much tinder wood. Those who had es- 
caped drowning died in their prisons a more horrible 
death. 

While this was going on that part of the divided 



436 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Stream which turned to the south continued on Its 
way. At first its violence was undiminished, but as it 
went on the inclination of the land and the obstacles it 
met somewhat broke its force. It swept across the 
triangle, inclining toward the south, and was turned 
still further in that direction by the bed of Stony 
Creek, at the foot of the mountain which forms the 
western barrier of the basin in which Johnstown lies. 
Its course is plainly visible now, as it was two hours 
afterward. Where it started everything is cleared 
away. 

A little further along the houses are still standing, 
but they are only masses of lumber and laths. Still 
further to the north they are overturned or lying upon 
their sides or corners, some curiously battered and as 
full of great holes as if they had been shot at with can- 
non. They are surrounded by driftwood and timbers, 
ground into splinters, railroad cars, ties and beams, 
all in a wild, untraceable jumble. 

The wave reaciied to the north at least a distance of 
a mile from the point where it was divided. Then it 
swept backward. It carried with it many houses that 
liad come from every part of the river. 

At th© Mercy of the Wares, 
Upon them and upon flooded roofs and doors and 
timbers were men, women and children crying, be- 
seeching and praying for help. Those on the shore 
who were watching this never to be forgotten spectacle 
saw the sufferers in the river go sweeping by, saw 
them come down again and still were unable to 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 437 

give them the slightest assistance. The flood pro- 
ceeded half a mile or more, and then was met and re- 
inforced by a wave started backward from the eddy- 
formed at the stone arch bridge. With redoubled 
force it turned once more to the south and then it went 
half a mile further, toppling over the house-, wrecking 
some and adding some to those which it had brought 
down from other places. For the second time it spent 
hn force and turned back, swept to the south and to 
destruction those who had four times been within sig-ht 
of safety. This time the whole mass of flooded wreck- 
agfe was carried down to the stone arch brldofe and 
added to the collection there and at last to the fire that 
was raging. 

Hundreds "Will Never Be Found. 
The blackened timber left from this fire, wedged in 
tightly above the bridge, is the only gorge at which 
workmen have labored all this week with dynamite 
and monstrous cranes. In it and below it are unnum- 
bered hundreds of bodies. How many perished In 
that frightful fire will never be known. Only a small 
proportion of the bodies can ever be found. Some 
were burned so that nothing but a handful of ashes 
remained, and that was swept away long ago with the 
torrent. Some were buried deep in the sand, and 
some have been carried down and hidden in sand 
banks and slews. Many will be destroyed by dyna- 
mite, and some will have disappeared long before the 
great flood of rubbish can be removed. Of all the 
horrible features of this dreadful story none is more 



438 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

heartrending than the story of that fire. It began 
about five o'clock that afternoon and went on all night 
and all the next day, and smouldered until Monday 
noon. Its progress was retarded somewhat by the 
rain and by the soaking of the material in the water, 
but this was only an added horror, for it prolonged 
the anguish for those imprisoned in the great raft who 
plainly saw their approaching death. 

Those who saw this sight from the shore cannot 
speak of it now and will hardly be able to speak of it 
as long as they live without tears. Imagination could 
not picture a situation more harrowing to human feel- 
ing than to stand there and watch that horrible scene 
without being able to rescue the prisoners or even 
alleviate their sufferings. 

liuins Left to Tell the Tale. 

Just below the stone bridge are the great works of 
the Cambria Iron Company. They occupy the east- 
ern bank of the stream for a distance of half a mile. 
The flood, tearing over the bridge, descended upon 
these works and tore the southernmost end of them t© 
pieces. The rest of the buildings escaped, but none 
of the works were swept away in the torrent. An 
iron bridge used jointly by the public and by the iron 
company to transport its coal from the mines across 
the river was caught by the very front of the flood and 
tossed away as if built of toothpicks. 

Looking from the stone arch bridge, the iron com- 
pany's buildings, the lower town school house, three 
of the buildings which divided the flood, a church, 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 439 

part of a brick residence and a litde cluster of brick 
business hous s, is all that can be seen above the 
yellow waste. Why these buildings are left it is im- 
possible to say. The school house, except for most of 
the windows being battered in and the scars and dents 
driven into it from the passing wreckage, is almost un- 
injured, although it stands directly in the centre of the 
flood. 

Lfoconiotives S^tTimming- in tlie Torrent. 

It is plain from the appearance of the buildings that 
the direction of the flood in many places was rotary, 
and the houses which still stand may have escaped 
between the eddies. No other explanation seems 
possible, for the force of the torrent was tremendous. 
It carried five lomotives, with their tenders, several 
miles, and piled them up against the stone bridge as 
easily as it carried a box of clothespins, At the head 
of the iron company's works was a great pile of iron 
in pieces eight feet long and a foot and a half thick 
either way. The flood toppled these over. In the 
half charred raft above the bridge are found great 
boilers, masses of iron, twisted beams and girders 
from bridges, heavy safes, pieces of railroad track, a 
hundred car wheels, mixed with every conceivable 
object of household use — pianos, sofas, dressing cases, 
crockery, trunks and their contents. 

Yet in all that mass it is impossible to find any 
trace of that pile of bricks built into the business 
houses of the town ; nor yet upon the banks, nor in 
the heaps of sand which, when the flood went down. 



440 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Were left here and there, is there any trace of the 
material of the building except the lumber. In the 
opinion of experts, all this stuff must have been 
ground into powder and swept down the river. Johns- 
town will never resume its former importance, A 
curse will hang over this beautiful valley as long as 
this generation lasts. The sanitary experts who have 
examined the place say that in all probability it will be 
plague ridden for years and years. 

Decomposing^ Bodies in the "Wreck. 

The massive stone bridge of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road, opposite the Cahibria Iron Works, marks the 
point of demarcation between the borough of Johns- 
town and that of Cambria City. The changes In the 
situation which have occurred since the eventful Fri- 
day have not been numerous. The wreckage" impacted 
beneath the arches has been removed from three of 
them, leaving four, which are closed by masses of tim- 
ber and drift material. 1 climbed over the debris in 
the famous cul-de-sac and reached the second from the 
Johnstown side after half an hour's labor. The ap- 
pearance was singular. Beneath the conglomeration 
of timber which filled the cavity of the a/ch to a dis- 
tance of twenty -five feet from the top the waters of the 
Conemaugh flowed swiftly. 

There was a network of telegraph wires, iron rods 
and metal work of Pullman cars stretched across from 
stone work to stonework on either side. The pridiron, 
as it were, penetrated far down into the water, and it had 
proved sufficiently strong to resist the onward rush of 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 441 

the lighter flotsam which swept before the onrolling 
wave. Lodged in this strange pile was the body of a 
horse. Deep among the meshes a terrible spectacle 
presented itself There were the bodies of three peo- 
ple — a woman, a child and a laborer with hobnailed 
shoes. They were beyond the reach of the workers 
who are clearing the wreck near to the bridge and the 
latter will be unable to reach the corpses until a con- 
siderable amount of blasting with dynamite has been 
done. There was a faint odor of decomposition and 
another day will cause the vicinity of the viaduct to 
suggest a charnel house to the olfactory senses. There 
are many other bodies, no doubt, beneath the debris 
and prevented_from floating down the stream by the 

ruins. 

Cambria City Paralyzed. 

Conemaugh City was connected with the Cambria 
Iron Works, on the opposite side of the Conemaugh, 
by a temporary suspension bridge of steel wire. 
The bridge was originally for two railways — a narrow 
and a broad gauge — and a footway. It was swept 
away before the reservoir burst, according to all ac- 
counts. Cambria City, or rather a fringe of houses 
along the higher ground of the bank, the remaining 
portion of a once prosperous town, is absolutely par- 
alyzed by the stunning blow which has befallen it. 
There are but few people at work among the debris. 
The clean sweep of the flood left little wreckage 
behind. A few sad-faced women wandered about and 
poked in the sand and among the broken stone which 



442 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

now covers the location of their former homes. The 
men who were saved have returned to their work at 
the Cambria mills, and the survivors among their 
families are stowed in the houses which remain intact. 
There must have been at least one thousand lives lost 
from Cambria City. 

There has been no attempt to replace the bridge at 
'' Ten Acre," as the point below Cambria City is 
called. The banks of the Conemaugh remain covered 
v/ith debris. In many places the masses are piled 
twenty-five feet high. The people are clearing their 
land by burning the unwonted accumulations. Only 
an occasional body is found. Most of the 200 corpses 
which have been buried at Nineveh were found in the 
bushes which fringe the river. All the way to Free- 
port the accumulation of debris may be seen. 
Kindly Care for the Helple?ss. 

There is to-day no lack of supplies, save at Cambria 
City, which has been overlooked and neglected, but 
where the destitution is great. The people there are 
in great want of food. Bread has given out, and ham 
is about the only food to be obtained. In only one of 
the wrecked houses left untouched by the flood I 
f jand from twenty to twenty-five refugees. The com- 
missary at the Pennsylvania Railroad depot is heaped 
so high with stores that distribution goes on with 
difficulty. The Grubbtown commissary is in the same 
condition. The Red Cross people got fairly to work 
in their supply tent to-day, and during the morning 
alone distributed five hundred packages of clothing. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 443 

Their hospital on the hill, back of Kernviile, is in ex- 
cellent order, and the patients quartered in the village 
houses are comfortably situated. Tliere have been 
no deaths at the Cambria hospital. The doctors there 
have cared for 500 cases indoors and out. Even 
Grandma Teeter is doing well. She was taken out of 
the wreck at the bridge on Saturday with her right 
arm crushed. It had to be amputated, and the old 
woman — she is eighty-three years cf age — stood the 
operation finely. 

Miss Hinckley, of Philadelphia, is busy in Kernviile 
making known the plans of the Children's Aid Society. 
She does an immense amount of running about and 
visiting houses. Many children made orphans by the 
flood are now being cared for. There are a hundred 
or more of them ; just how many no one knows. 

"I have great difficulty," said Miss Hinckley to me 
to-day, "to persuade the people who have taken 
children to care for that our society can be trusted to 
take charge of what will surely be a burden to them. 
All my work now is to inspire confidence. We have 
received hundreds of letters from people anxious to 
adopt children. They are ready now in the first flush 
of sympathy, but I am afraid that they will not be will- 
ing to take the children when we are ready to place 
them." 

Many Dead Still in the Ruins. 

The ruins still shelter a ghastly load of dead. 
Every hour at least one new body is uncovered and 
borne on a rough stretcher to some one of the many 



444 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

morgues. The sight loses none of its sadness and 
pathos by its commonness ; only the horror is gone, 
giving place to apathy and stupor. Stalwart men, in 
mud-stained, working clothes, bring up the body, the 
face covered with a cloth. The crowds part and gaze 
at the burned corpse as it passes. At the morgue it 
is examined for identification, washed and prepared 
for burial. Not more than half of these recovered 
now are identified. 

The vast majority fill nameless but numbered 
graves, and the descriptions are much too indefinite 
to hope for identification after burial. What can you 
expect from a description like this, picked out at 
random : '* Woman, five feet four inches tall, long 
hair?" The body of Eugene Hannon, twenty-two, 
found yesterday near the First Presbyterian Church, 
was identified to-day by his father. He was a member 
of the League of American Wheelmen, and his bicy- 
cle was found v/ithin a few yards of his body. The 
father will lay the wrecked bicycle on the coffin of his 
son. 

Just now a woman, still young and poorly dressed, 
went by the shed where I am writing, sobbing most 
pitifully. She lost her husband and children in the 
flood and is on the verge of insanity. 

Finding^ Solace in Work. 

The day opened with heavy rain and an early morn- 
ing thunder storm. The hill-side streams were filled 
to the banks and everything was dripping. The air 
was chilly and damp, and daylight was slow in coming 



THE JOHNSTON N HORROR. 44§ 

to this valley of desolation and death. At an early 
hour the valley, where so many have gone to rest, pre- 
sented a most dismal scene. It looked, indeed, like 
the valley of the dead. Nothing was moving, and all 
remained within the meagre shelter offered them till 
the day had fairly begun. As the day advanced, the 
tented hills began to show signs of life, smoke arose 
from many a camp fire, and on every eminence sur- 
rounding this valley of desolation could be seen the 
guards moving among the tented villages. 

The weather was most unpleasant for any one to be 
outdoors, but it apparently had no effect on the people 
here, for as soon as the early breakfast was over the 
thousands of workmen could be seen going to their 
work, and soon the whole valley that in the early 
morning hours was asleep was a teeming throng of 
life and activity. While the rain was far from pleasant 
to the workers and many helpers, it was certainly 
providential that the cool weather is continuing in 
order to prevent the much-dreaded decomposition of 
the hundreds of human bodies yet unrecovered and the 
thousands of animals that perished in the flood. The 
air this morning, while tainted to some extent with the 
fumes arising from the decaying bodies, was not near 
so bad as it would have been had the morning been 
hot and sultry. 

Working on the Stone Bridge Debris, 

By seven o'clock the whole valley was full of peo- 
ple and the scene was a most animated one. The 
various sections of the flooded territory were full of 



44G THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

men busy in searching for the dead, removing and 
burning the debris. At eight o'clock this morning 
five bodies had been taken from the mass at the 
stone bridcre. A larg-e force of men have been work- 
iig all day on this part of the wreck, but so great is 
the quantity of wreckage to be gone over and re- 
moved that while much work is done very slow pro- 
gress is being made. The contini ed falling of the 
river renders the removal of the debris every day 
more arduous, and Vvhere a few days ago the timbers 
when loosened would float away, now they have 
to be moved by hand, making the work very slow. 

A most welcome arrival this mornino- was Dr. B. 
Bullen of disinfectant fame. He brought with him 
fifty barrels more of his disinfectant. The doctor will 
take charge of the disinfecting of the dangerous sec- 
tions of the flooded district and notably at the stone 
bridge Twenty-five barrels have already been used 
with most favorable results. Dr Bullen was a former 
resident of Johnstown and lost thirty relatives in the 
flood, among them three brothers-in-law, three uncles 
and two aunts. 

Clearing' the Cambria Iron "Works. 

The Cam.bria Iron Company's Works presented a 
busy scene to-day. At least nine hundred men are at 
work, and most rapid progress is being made in clear- 
ing away the wreck. It is said that the works vyill 
start up in about three weeks. 

There is little change in the situation. Every one 
is working with the one end in view, to clear away the 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 447 

wreckage and give the people of Johnstown a chance 
to rebuild. The laborers working at the Cambria Iron 
Works and on the Pennsylvania Railroad seem to be 
making rapid progress. This is no doubt for the rea- 
son that these men are more used to this kind of work. 
About ten o'clock the rain was over and the sun came 
out with its fierce June heat. 

A number of charges of dynamite were fired during 
the day, and each time with good effect. The chan- 
nels through to the bridge are almost clear of debris, 
and each charge of dynamite has loosened large quan- 
tities of the wreckage. 

This is the eighth day since the demon of destruc- 
tion swept down the valley of the Conemaugh, but the 
desolation that marks its angry flight is still visible in 
all its intensity and horror. The days that have been 
spent by weary toilers whose efforts were steeled by 
grief have done little to repair the devastation wrought 
in one short hour by the potent fury of the elements. 
To the watchers on the mountain side all seems yet 
chaos and confusion. The thousand fires that spot the 
valley show that the torch is being used to complete 
the work of annihilation where repair is impossible 
and the smoke curls upward. It reminds one of the 
peace offerings of ancient Babylon. 

Uncle Sam's Men on Hand. 

The corps of government engineers that arrived 
last night has already demonstrated the valuable 
assistance which it Is capable of rendering in these 
times of emergency. Widi but a few hours rest, those 



448 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR, 

men were up ere sunrise this morning, and by eight 
o'clock a pontoon bridge had been stretched across 
the river at Kernville. Acting in conjunction with the 
Pennsylvania military authorities they are pursuing 
their labors at various other points, and by sundown it 
is confidently expected that pontoon bridges will be 
erected at all places where the necessities of traffic de- 
mand. It is the fact, probably not generally known, 
that the great government of the United States owns 
only 500 feet of pontoon bridges, and that these are 
the same that were used by the federal forces in the 
civil war, twenty-five years ago. The bridges that are 
to be used at Johnstown were brought from West 
Point and Willet's Point, where they have been for 
years used in the ordinary course of instruction In the 
military and engineer corps. 

Secret Society Relief. 

The following official announcements have been 
made : 

A Masonic relief committee has been organized and 
solicits aid for distressed Freemasons and their 
families. 

William A. Donaldson, Chairman. 

Office of Supreme Commander, Knights of the 
Mystic Chain, W^ilmtngton, Del., June 8, 1889. — In 
view of the great calamity that has befallen our 
brothers at Johnstown, Pa,, and vicinity, I, H. G. Rettes, 
Supreme Commander, request that v/herever the 
Order of the Knights of the Mystic Chain exists there 
be liberal donations made for our affiicted brothers. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 449 

Affairs at the tremendous stone bridge wreckage pile 
seem to have resolved themselves into a state of almost 
hopelessness. It is amazing the routine into which 
everything has fallen in this particular place. Every 
morning at seven o'clock a score of Lilliputs come 
mechanically from huts and tents or the bare hill-side, 
and wearily and weakly go to work clearing away this 
mass, and at the rate they are now proceeding it will 
actually be months before the debris is cleared away 
and the last body found. Fortunately the wind is 
blowing away from us or we would have olfactory evi- 
dence that what is not found is far worse than what 
has been exposed. 

Then it may be good business and good policy to 
have these few workers fool around the edge of the 
wreckage for five or ten minutes adjusting a dynamite 
blast, then hastily scramble away and consume as 
much more time before a tremendous roar announces 
the ugly work is done, but the onlookers doubt it. 
Sometimes, when an extra large shot is used, the 
water, bits of wood and iron, and other shapes more 
fearfully suggestive, fly directly upward in a solid 
column at least three hundred feet high, only to fall 
back again in almost the same spot, to be tugged and 
pulled at or coaxed to float down an unwilling current 
that is falling so rapidly now that even this poor 
mode of egress will soon be shut entirely off. 

The fact of the matter is simply this : They are not 
attempting to recover bodies at the bridge, but as one 
blast tears yards of stuff into flinders it is shoved 
29 



450 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

indifferently into the water, be it human or brute^ 
stone, wood or iron, to float down toward Pittsburgh 
or to sink to the bottom, may be a few yards from 
where it was pushed off from the main pile. 

Up in the centre of the town the debris is piled even 
higher than at the stone bridge, but the work is going 
on fairly well. The men seem to be working more 
toge^:her and enter into the spirit of the thing. Besides 
this, horses and wagons can get at the wrecks, and it 
really looks as if this part of the ruins has been exag- 
gerated, and some of the foremen there say that at the 
present rate of work going on through the town all the 
bodies that ever will be recovered will be found within 
the next ten days. As to the condition these bodies 
are in, that has become almost a matter of indiffer- 
ence, except as to the effect upon the health of the 

living. 

Compared witli other Calamities. 

An eye-witness writes as follows : 

The scene is one that cannot be described in out- 
line — it must be told in detail to become intelligible. 
Never before in this country, at least, was there a dis- 
aster so stupendous, so overwhelming, so terrible in 
its fierce and unheralded onset and so sorrowful in its 
death-dealing work, I traversed the Mill River Val- 
ley the day after the bursting of the Mill River dam. 
I went over Wallingford, in Connecticut, a few hours 
after that terrible cyclone had swept through the 
beautiful New Enorjand village. I stood on the broken 
walls of the Brooklyn Theatre and looked down upon 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 451 

hecatombs of dead sacrificed In that holocaust to Mo- 
mus. Each of these was in itself a terrible calamity, 
but here is not only what was most terrible in all 
these, but every horrifying feature of the Mill River 
flood, the Wallingford cyclone and the Brooklyn 
Theatre fire is here magnified tenfold, nay, a hundred 
fold. And what is even more terrible than the scenes 
of devastation, the piles of dead that have been 
unearthed from the ruins and the mangled human 
bodies that still remain buried in the debris, is the 
simple but startling fact that this disaster ought not to 
have happened. 

The flood was not due to the rains. This calamity 
is not the work of the unprovoked fury of the angry 
elements. This fair town and the populous valley 
above it, all the varied industries of this thriving city, 
all these precious lives are a sacrifice to the selfishness 
of a few men whose purses were bigger than their 
hearts. There would have been no flood if these rich 
men had not built an artificial pond in which to catch 
fish. 

The now famous dam was only a mud bank. For 
years it was a constant menace to Johnstown and the 
Conemaugh Valley. It has long been only a question 
of time when the calamity that has befallen these peo- 
ple should befall them. It came at last because the 
arrogance of the purse and the pleasure-seeking selfish- 
ness of wealth were blind to the safety of a populous 
community. 

The cause of the Johnstown disaster was wholly due 



452 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

) 

to the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. This 
club was specially chartered by the Legislature, and 
notwithstanding there was some opposition at the time, 
it was accorded the privilege of making an artificial 
lake and fish pond by means of an embankment. The 
site chosen was the old dam on South Fork Creek, 
about two miles above the village of South Fork, on 
the Conemaugh river. This dam was built by the 
Pennsylvania Canal in 1830 as a feeder to the canal 
below Johnstown. When the canal was finally aban- 
doned, after passing into the hands of the Pennsylva- 
nia Railroad Company, the dam was sold to a private 
buyer for the very reasonable sum of $700. By him 
it was afterwards conveyed to the Fishing and Hunt- 
ing Club for 1^1,400. This was about twenty years 
ago. The club spent ^22,000 in rebuilding the dam 
and erected a beautiful club house on the west bank 
of the artificial lake. , Beside the club house there are 
from twelve to fifteen cottages, the summer residences 
of members of the club, all built since the acquisition 
of the property twenty years ago. Ten of these cot- 
tages are visible from the embankment where the 
break occurred. It was a beautiful spot before the 
disaster, but this artificial lake in its placid beauty was 
a menace to the lives and property of the . people in 
the Conemaugh Valley from its completion to its 
destruction. 

The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was a 
very aristocratic and exclusive organization. Not 
even Tuxedo puts on more airs. It was composed of 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 453 

about seventy members, a hp-ker's dozen of them 
Pittsburgh millionaires. 

These wealthy gentlemen and their associates never 
so much as recognized the existence of the common 
clay of South Fork, except to warn all intruders to 
keep off the land and water of the South Fork Fish- 
ing and Hunting Club. Their placards still stare 
sight-seers in the face. One of these reads : 

Private Property. 

All Trespassers Found Hunting or Fishing on 

These Grounds will be Prosecuted to the 

Full Extent of the Law. 

Another is as follows : 

Private Property. 
No Fishing or Hunting on these Premises, Un- 
der Penalty of the Law, |ioo. 
South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club. 

Only an Earthwork, 

Strenuously as the club insisted upon exacting the 
fnll penalties and extent of the law for encroachments 
upon its privileges, it was quite heedless of the rights 
of others. There probably never was in the world a 
case of such blind fatuity as that of the South Fork 
Fishing and Hunting Club in building and maintaining 
its dam. From the first it must have been known to 
every member of the club, as it certainly was to every 
resident of the South Fork and Conemaugh Valleys, 
that if the water ever began to run over the breast of 
the dam the dam itself would give way. The dam 



454 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

was only a clay embankment. There was no masonry 
whatever — at least there is none visible in the break. 
The bottom was of brushwood and earth — some 
people in the South Fork valley say hay and sand. 
In consequence, the people below the dam who knew 
how it was built have always regarded it as a menace 
to their safety. Indeed, one man employed in its con- 
struction was discharged by the club or its contractor 
for protesting against the dam as insecure. His crime 
consisted in declaring that an embankment made in 
that way could not resist the force of an overflow. 
He was telling the simple truth, which was clear to 
every one except men disposed to take chances. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
A Walk Thirougln the Valley of Death. 

In the following graphic narrative one of the eye- 
witnesses of the fearful ruin and slaughter represents 
himself as a guide, and if the reader will consider him- 
self as the party whom the guide is conducting, a vivid 
impression of the scene of the great destruction may 
be obtained. 

" Hello, where on earth did you come from ? And 
what are you doing here, anyhow? Oh! you just 
dropped in to see the sights, eh? Well, there are 
plenty of them and you won't see the like of them 
again if you live a century. What's that ? You have 
been wandering around and got tangled up in the 
ruins and don't know where you are? Well, that's 
not strange. I have been lost myself a dozen times. 
It's a wonder you haven't got roasted by some of those 
huge bonfires. But here, you come with me. Let me 
be your guide for the afternoon and I'll put you in 
the way of seeing what is left of Johnstown. 

" First, let's climb up this bluff just before us and we 
shall have a first-rate view of things. Skip across this 
little temporary bridge over this babbling brook and 
now — climb ! Whew ! that takes your breath, doesn't 
it ? But it is worth the trouble. Now you see we are 
standing on an embankment perhaps thirty feet high. 

(455) 



456 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

We are in the midst, too, of a lot of tents. It is here 
that the soldier boys are encamped. Off to one side 
you see the freight depot of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road and the tracks, you notice, run along on the top 
of this embankment. It is in that freight depot that 
Adjutant General Hastings has his headquarters. 
We will walk over there presently, but first let's take 
a look at our surroundings. 

Prospect Hill. 

"You notice, I suppose, that this flat spreading out 
before us at the bottom of the embankment is inclosed 
on all sides by mountains. They are shaped some- 
thing like a triangle and we are standing at the base. 
Here, let me make a rough sketch of it on the back of 
this envelope. It will help us out a little. There ! That 
figure I is the freight depot, near which we are stand- 
ing. Towering up above us are houses and up there a 
canvas city for refugees. There is a temporary hos- 
pital there, too, and a graveyard, where many a poor 
victim of the flood lies. The background is a high hill. 
The people here call it Prospect Hill. The flood ! 
Gracious ! what a view the people up the hill must 
have had of it as it whirled, and eddied, and roared 
and rushed through the town, for this great flat before 
us v/as where the main portion of Johnstown stood. 

"You notice that there are gaps in the mountain 
chains which form the sides of the triangle. Through 
the gap at our left comes the Conemaugh River, flow- 
ing from the mountain on its way westward. River, 
did I say ? I don't wonder you smile. It doesn't look 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



45r 



much like a river — that little bubbling stream. Can 
you imagine it swelling into a mighty sea, that puny 
thing, that is smiling in its glee over the awful havoc 
it has created ? Now you are beginning to under- 




stand how it is that Johnstown proper lies within the 
forks of two streams. The Conemaugh runs by us at 
our feet to the right. See, there is a wrecked and over- 
turned car down there. If thrown across the stream 
it would almost bridge it. That is Stony Creek on the 



458 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Other side of the flat, running down through that gap 
which forms the apex of the triangle. It skirts the 
mountains on the right and the two streams meet. 
You can't see the meeting point from here, for our 
embankment curves, but they do meet around that 
curve, and then the united rivers flow under the now 
famous stone bridge, which was buih to carry this rail- 
road across the stream. Oh ! yes, we will go down 
there, for that bridge formed the gorge which proved 
so destructive. 

Savage Fury, 

" I would like to take you away up to the dam if 
we had time and point out the destruction all along 
down the valley until the flood rushed through that 
gap to the left and then spread over Johnstown. But 
it is too late in the day for that, and the walk is a most 
tiresome one, so you will have to take my word for it. 
Of course, you have read that the dam was con- 
structed in a most outrageous manner. Well, that is 
true. It is a wonder the valley wasn't swept long ago. 
No, the loss of life wasn't great in the upper part of 
the valley because the people took the warning fv^hich. 
the Johnstonians refused and mostly escaped. The 
little town of South Fork was badly shattered and 
Mineral Point was swept away. '■ 

"But the real fury of the flood is seen in its marks 
on the soil. Gracious ! how it leveled forests, swept 
away bowlders, cut out new channels and destroyed 
•everything in its path. I cannot begin to give you 
even an idea of the wonderful power of that flood. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 459 

At East Conemaugh not a vestige of the place was 
left. Where once stood a row of houses the river 
now runs, and the former river-bed is now filled with 
dirt and stones. It was in this vicinity, you know, 
where so many engines and cars were wrecked — 
smashed, twisted, broken and scattered along the 
valley for half a mile. It was here, too, where the 
passengers in the two trains met such a thrilling ex- 
perience, and where so many of them were killed. 
The body of one of the passengers, Miss Bryan, of 
Germantown, was found away down here in Johns- 
town, 

" It took but a few minutes for the flood to rush down 
upon Woodvale and sweep it out of existence, and 
then it made a mad break through that gap over there 
on the extreme left. The houses which you see on the 
hillside over there — figure 6 — belong to Conemaugh 
borough, a different place from East Conemaugh, you 
understand. The borough also extended down over 
the flat. By the way, there is something very funny 
about all these separate boroughs. Most all of them 
are naturally parts of Johnstown — such as Cone- 
maugh, Kernville, Cambria City, Prospect and the 
like, but there have been so many petty jealousies 
that they have refused to unite. But that is neither 
here nor there now, for in the common calamity' they 

are one. 

Liaugliiiigr at Danger. 

"Now you would have thought that the people on the 
Johnstown flat would have got out of the way when 



460 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

warned of danger, wouldn't you? But they simply 
laughed. You must remember that a good portion of 
the place was flooded long before the dam broke. The 
rise of the two rivers did that. The water ran from 
two to five or six feet high in some of the houses. But, 
bless you, that was nothing. The place had been 
flooded so many times and escaped that everybody ac- 
tually howled down all suggestions of danger. Tele- 
grams had been coming into town all the afternoon 
and they were received by Miss Ogle, the brave lady 
operator, who stuck to her post to the last, but they 
might as well never have been sent for all the good 
they did. 

" Well, now with Johnstown spread out before you 
you can readily understand what happened when the 
flood burst through the gap. There was no time to 
run then. No time to pray, even. You notice the 
river makes a sharp curve, and naturally enough the 
impetus of the water spread it over a wide territory. 
The Conemaugh houses on the flat went down like so 
many pasteboard houses. A portion of the flood fol- 
lowed the stream and the other portion went tearing 
along the line of the hills which form the left side of 

the triangle. 

Wiped Out of Existence. 

"Now look away over to the left and then away over 
to the hills on the right, and what do you see ? That 
distance is how great ? Two miles, do you say ? 
Yes, fully that and probably more. Well, now for 
two or three squares inland from this stream at our 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 461 

feet there is nothing but a barren waste of sand — 
looks like a desert, doesn't it ? Can you imagine that 
all that immense strip was covered with stores, 
business houses and dwellings ? Where are they 
now ? Why, just look at that circular hole just be- 
neath us on the other side of the stream. That was 
the gas works once. The great iron receiver, or 
whatever you call it, went rolling, dashing, crashing 
away before the flood, and not a vestige of it has been 
found yet. Can you ask, then, what became of the 
houses ? Simply wiped out of existence. 

"There ! I put down the figure 2 on the map. It is 
a brick building, as you see, but there is a big hole 
knocked in it. That is the B. and O. depot. Figure 
3 — Two more brick buildings with one end completely 
gone. These are the Cambria Iron Company's offices 
and the company's stores. What else can you see ? 
Just around the curve where I mark down figure 4 is 
another brick building — the Millvale school-house. It 
is out of range from this point, but you shall see it by 
and by. These buildings are actually the only ones 
left standing in all that desert of sand, a covering four 
or five feet deep left by the flood and hiding whatever 
is underneath as effectually as the ashes of Mt. Vesu- 
vius blotted out Pompeii. There may be a thousand 
bodies under that sand for all that anybody knows. 
Just ahead of us in the great area roughly shown by 
this figure 5 lie the tents of the workmen engaged in 
putting Johnstown in order. Now, if you draw a line 
from the Conemaugh hills right down back of the B. 



462 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

and O. depot through the camp of the workmen, and 
thence to Stony Creek, the only buildings you will 
find standing between us and that imaginary line are 
these I have already marked with figures as 2, 3 and 4 
on the map. Did you ever see anything so destruc- 
tive in your life ? 

A Famous Morg-ue. 

"You say you see a good many buildings in what 
appears to be the centre of the town. So you do, but 
just wait until you stroll among them. There are 
many there, it is true, but after all, how many are 
good for anything ? Oh ! the water has been doing a 
tremendous amount of damage. Why, over diere, up 
to the very foot of the hills— I will mark the spot No. 
7— behind the buildings which you see, it has simply 
torn things up by the roots. That is the Fourth ward, 
and the ruins are full of the dead, and the Fourth 
Ward Morgue has had more bodies in it than any of 
the others. 

"You remember that I told you that one current 
swept over that way. It caught up houses and they 
began to drift all over the place, crashing into each 
other and grinding people between the timbers. All 
this time the houses down here by the Conemaugh 
had been floating toward the bridge. Logs, boards, 
lumber and houses from the banks of Stony Creek 
had been coming down, too, and thus formed that 
tremendous jam above the stone bridge, which ac- 
tually turned the current of the creek back upon 
itself. Some of the houses from the centre of the 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



46S 



city and from the Fourth ward got into Stony Creek 
and actually went up the stream. Others floated all 
over tovv^n in circles and finally, having reached the 
Conemaugh, got caught in the jam at last and were 
destroyed by the fire which broke out there. After a 




SELLING DAMAGED GOODS. 



time, too, the pressure at the bridge became so tre- 
mendous that the river burst a new channel for itself 
and then many houses came down again. 

"But I am anticipating. Let us walk down to the 
bridge — it is not far — for the bridge is the key to the 



464 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

situation. We must pass the freight depot, for we 
follow the track. You see it is a busy place. You 
know we have had a change of administration here, 
and Adjutant General Hastings is in command. We 
are all heartily glad of it, too, for the worst kind of 
red tapeism prevailed under the Pittsburgh regime. 

''And then the deputies — a lot of brutes appointed 
by the Sheriff. What an ignorant set they were. 
Most of them couldn't even read. They were the 
only toughs in town. They had captured all the 
tomato cans left over from the great flood which the 
Bible tells about and had cut out tin stars to decorate 
themselves with. Anybody who could find a piece 
of tin could be a deputy. And how they did bull- 
doze. 

"But all this is changed now. The deputies — we 
called them the tin policemen — have been bounced and 
the place is now guarded by the soldiers. Business 
has taken the place of red tape, and General Hastings 
has turned the freight depot into offices for his various 
departments, for a system has been established which 
will reach all the victims, bury all the dead, discover 
all the living and clean up the town. There is now a 
central bureau, into which reports are turned, and the 
old haphazard way of doing things has been swept as 
clean as the sand before us. There is General Has- 
tings' horse standing at the steps, for the general is 
in the saddle most of the time, here, there, everywhere, 
directing and ordering. 

"Dinner I hello, dinner is ready. Now you will see 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 465 

how the officers at headquarters live. You see, the 
table has been spread on the platform facing the rail- 
road tracks. Ah ! there is Hastings himself — white 
slouch hat, white shirt, blue flannel trousers, and boots. 
He looks every inch a soldier, doesn't he ? There ! 
he is beckoning to us. What do you suppose he 
wants. Oh ! he wants us to dine with him. Shall we ? 
It will be plain fare, but as good as can be found. A 
dudish society reporter from Philadelphia dropped into 
town the other morning. He met a brother reporter 
from the same paper. 

" ' Oh !' he groaned. ' Where can I find a restau- 
rant ? * 

"'Restaurant!' shrieked the other. 'Where do 
you think we are ? Restaurant ! You come with me 
and I'll try to steal you a ham sandwich, and you'll be 
snighty lucky to get that.' 

" ' Oh ! but I am so hungry. Can you direct me to 
the nearest hack stand ? * 

"The brother reporter turned and fled in dismay, and 
the society man hasn't been seen around here since. 
But it illustrates the time the boys have been havinof 
getting anything to eat. So we had better accept the 
g-eneral's invitation. What have we here? Oh ! this 
is fme. You don't mind tin plates and spoons and 
coffee cups, of course, especially as we have ham and 
potatoes, bread and coffee for dinner. That's a right 
^ood meal ; but I tell you I have eaten enough ham to 
last me for a year, and when I get out of Johnstown 
and get back to Philadelphia I am going to make a 
30 



466 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

break for the Bellevue and eat. And there wont 
be any ham in that dinner, you can bet. 
A Renowned Building-. 

''Now, have you had enough ? Then we will con- 
tinue our walk along the tracks to the bridge. First 
we pass the Pennsylvania Railroad passenger station. 
What a busy place it is ! The tracks are filled with 
freight cars packed with supplies, and the platform is 
filled with men and women ready to take them. In 
this station a temporary morgue was established. It 
has been moved now to the school-house. No. 4, you 
know, on the map. Now, as we round the curve you 
see it. That is the famous building that saved so 
many lives — the only one left in the great barren 
waste of sand. You know the water formed an eddy 
about it, and thus, as house after house floated and 
circled about it men and women would clutch the roof 
and climb upon it. The water reached half way to 
the ceiling on the second floor on a dead level. 

"Now you can see where the two rivers come to- 
gether. What a jam that was. It extended from the 
fork down to the bridge — No. 10. When the flames 
began to demolish it the pile towered far above the 
bridge. Now it is level with the water, but so thickly 
is it packed that the river runs beneath it. Let us 
stand here on the railroad embankment at the ap- 
proach to the bridge, and watch the workmen. You 
notice how high the approaches are on either side, 
and you can readily understand how these high banks 
cauofht the drift. The stone arches of the brido-e are. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 467 

low, you perceive. When the flood was at its height 
houses were actually swept over the bridge. From 
the debris left in the river and on the sides you can 
imagine what an immense dam It was that was formed, 
and just how It happened that the rivers turned back 
on themselves. I met a woman up Stony Creek early 
this morning. She was laughing over the adventure 
she and her children had. They floated down the 
creek to the bridge and then floated back again, and 
were finally rescued in boats. I asked her how she 
could joke about It. 

" ' Oh !' she said, T am never bothered about any- 
thing. I was as cool then as I am now, and rather 
enjoyed It' 

"But she wasn't very cool. She was bordering on 
the hysterical. She and her children are now living 
with friends, for their house was completely wrecked. 
A Telegraph Office. 

"A good many people had experiences similar to hers 
before the river broke through the railroad embank- 
ment just above the bridge here and swept tracks and 
everything else down upon the Cambria Iron Works. 
There they are, just behind us. I will mark them on 
the map — No. ii. Then the flow rushed through 
Cambria City, just below. That place is in a horrible 
condition — houses wrecked and streets full of debris. 
But there Is no necessity of going there. You can 
see all the horrors you want right here. 

" Look across the bridge, up the hill a little way. Do 
you see that old, tumble-down coal shed ? It is where 



468 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

the Western Union established its office, and in that 
neighborhood most of the reporters have been Hving 
— sleeping in brick-kilns, hay lofts, tents, anywhere in" 
fact. What a nice time they have had of it. They 
have suffered as much as the flood victims. 

"Phew ! What a stench. It comies from the debris 
in the river. It is full of the dead bodies of horses, 
doo-s ; yes, and of human beings. We hear stories 
opcasionally of women being taken from that mass 
alive. They are false, of course, but there was one 
instance that is authentic. A woman was found one 
week after the flood still breathing. She had been 
caught in some miraculous way. She was taken to 
Pittsburgh, where she died. I was kicking about over 
the debris a day or two ago, and heard a cat mewing 
under the debris somewhere. I know half a dozen 
people who have rescued kittens and are caring for 
them tenderly. A flood cat will command a premium 
before long, I have no doubt. 

'' Ha ! What's that ? Yes, it is a body. The sight 
is so common now that people pay no attention to it. 
We have been living in the midst of so much death, of 
so many scenes of a similar character, that I suppose 
the sensibilities have become hardened to them. 
There, they are placing the body on a window shutter 
and are carrying it up to the school house. It will be 
laid on a board placed over the tops of the children's 
desks. You will notice coffins piled up all about the 
school house. Of course, the body is awfully dis- 
figured and cannot be identified. The clothing will be 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. ^^69 

described and the body hurried away to its nameless 

grave. 

Frag'ment of a Bible. 

" Have you enough ? Then let us walk back toward 
headquarters and go down upon the fiat into the 
centre of the town. What is that you have there? A 
piece of a Bible ? Yes, you will find lots of leaves 
lying around. There is a story — I don't know how 
true it is — that many people have thrown their Bibles 
away since the flood, declaring that their belief, after 
the horrors they have witnessed, is at an end. I can 
hardly credit this. But there is one curious thing that 
is certain, and everybody has noticed it. Books and 
Bibles have been found in the rubbish all over the 
town, and in a great many instances they are open at 
some passage calling attention to flood and disaster. 
I have found these myself a dozen times. It is a re- 
markable coincidence, to say the least. 

"Some people may find a warning in^all this, I don't 
pretend to say, but as we walk along here let me tell 
you of a conversation I had with a man who was worth 
nearly $20,000 before the flood. He has lost every 
cent, and is glad enough to get his daily meals f j om 
the supplies sent here. 

" ' I don't know what to think of Johnstown,' he said. 
*We have been called a wicked place. Perhaps all 
this is a judgment. Just when we have been most pros- 
perous some calamity has come upon us. We were 
never more prosperous than when this flood over- 
whelmed us.' 



470 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

"Well here we are back at General Hastinofs' head- 
quarters. Now we will go down the embankment, 
cross the river and plunge ahead into town. 

"Over this loose sand we will trudge and strike in by 
the Baltimore and Ohio depot. Now we are in the 
camp of the workingmen. Here are the stalls for the 
horses, too. The men, you see, live in tents. There 
are not as many of them as there will be ; probably 
not over fifteen hundred to-day, but there will be twice 
that to-morrow, and five thousand men will be em- 
ployed here steadily for a long time to come. Now 
let us jump right into Main street. It is the worst one 
in town. Just see ! There is the post-of^ce, looking 
as if it never would be able to pull icself out of the 
wreck. Across the street is the bank, with the sol- 
diers guarding it. There, just ahead, you see a tall 
brick building lifting its head out of the midst of a pile 
of ruins. There is where many people were saved. 
The current carried scores of men, women and chil- 
dren past it, and those who had strength deserted 
their rafts and wrecks of houses and crawled into its 
windows. 

" Now our progress is blocked. That immense pile 
of wreckage is by no means as high as it was ; but 
you don't want to crawl over it yet. Phew ! Let's get 
out of this. How those piles of rubbish do smell. 
You know the Board of Health says there is nothing 
the matter with Johnstown, but if the Board of Health 
would only take the trouble to nose about a bit it 
might learn a thing or two. You notice there have 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 471 

been grocery stores and markets around here, and 
you notice, too, the pile of decaying vegetable matter 
from them. These are worse than the dead bodies. 
Horrible Sceues. 

"Are there bodies under these ruins? Lots of them. 
There ! what do you see this minute ? Those work- 
men have discovered one in the ruins of the Mer- 
chants' Hotel. Poor fellow. He was pinned by fall- 
ing walls, probably. A man was found there the 
other day with his pockets full of money. He had 
tried to save his fortune and lost his life. Near by a 
man was found alive after an experience of a week in 
the debris. He called for water, but never drank it. 
His tongue was too stiff, and he had not strength to 
move a muscle. He died almost as soon as he was 
found. 

"Well, did you ever see such a mass of wreckage? 
It doesn't look as if there were twenty houses fit to 
live in all over this flat. But a good many will be 
patched up after a fashion, no doubt. And this is only 
one street out of several in the same condition. 

" Hello ! Those workmen are digging out of a cellar 
some barrels of whisky. That liquor will be guarded, 
for the old policemen and the ' tin ' deputies have 
been having high old times with the liquor they have 
unearthed. There were formerly forty-five saloons in 
this town. Do you know how many there are left? 
Three. That's all. One saloon-keeper found ^1,700 
in the ruins of his place. 

" Gracious ! There is a freight car. It was caught 



472 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

up half a mile or more away and dumped down m 
this street. And there is a piano sticking out. Hello i 
What have you found there ? Oh, a looking glass. 
Yes. you find plenty of them in the rubbish almost as 
good as new. A friend of mine pulled out a glass 
pitcher and two goblets from that terrible mass at the 
bridge, and there wasn't a crack upon them. Queer, 
isn't it ? But so it goes. Fragile things are not 
injured and stoves and iron are twisted and broken. 
The vagaries of this flood are many. 

** I Thought You Were Dead.'* ' 
" Turn this corner. Now, will you look at that? 
There is a house with the back all knocked out. The 
furniture has disappeared, but on the wall you see a 
picture hanging, and as I am alive it is a picture of a 
flood. What did I tell you a little while ago ? Here 
is a house with its walls nearly intact. Next it is 
nothing but a heap of rubbish. Here is nothing but a 
cellar full of debris. Next it is a wooden dwelling. 
A man sits on the piazza with his clothing hung about 
him for an airing. And so it goes right here in the 
neigborhood of the main street, but if we pull out a 
hit from this place we shall see that the damage is a 
great deal greater. Through this break you can see 
the Presbyterian church. It is about ruined, but it 
St 11 stands. If you go up stairs, what do you think 
you will see in that cold, dark, damp room ? Stretched 
upon the tops of the pews are long boards, and 
stretched upon the boards are corpses. They have 
been embalmed^ and are awaiting identification. But 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 47^ 

we won't go in there. All the morgues are alike, 
and we shall find another before long. 

" Hark ! There are two women greeting each 
other. Let's hear what they say. 

" * Why, Eliza, I thought you were dead. How's all 
the folks ? Are they all saved ? ' 

"'Yes; they are all saved — all but sister and her 
little girl.' 

"Well, that was cool, wasn't it ? But you hear that 
on every corner. As I told you, in the presence of so 
much death the sensibilities are blunted. People da 
not yet realize their great grief. 

" There, we are safely by the main street with its 
dangers of pestilence, for you noticed that it was reek- 
ing with filth and bad smells, and safely by the falling 
walls, for the workmen are tearing down everything 
shaky. Look out, there, or you will get scorched by 
that huge bonfire. They are burning all over town. 
Everything that the men can lift is dragged to these 
fires and burned. This is the plan for clearing the 
town. You noticed it at the bridge and you notice it 
here. Men with axes and saws are cutting" timbers 
too big to be moved, and men with ropes and horses 
and even stationary engines are pressed into service 
to tug at the ruins. Slowly the debris is yielding to 
the flames. 

An ATirful Sepulchre. 

" Ha ! now we are getting over by the hills into what 
is known as the Fourth ward. Here it is on our map 
— No. 7. What a sight ! Most of the bodies are 



474 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

taken from the ruins here. As far as you can see 
there is nothing but wreckage — yes, wreckage, from 
which the foulest odors are continually rising and in 
the midst of which countless big fires are burning. 
Are you not almost discouraged at the idea of clearing 
so many acres up ? Well, it does look like an end- 
less task. 

"There, you see that brick building? It is called the 
Fourth Ward School House. Do you want to go in ? 
Piled up at one side are coffins — little coffins, medium 
sized coffins, large coffins — coffins for children, women 
and men. Oh ! what a gloomy, horrible place. 
Stretched on these boards in this dismal room- — what 
do you see ? Corpses dragged from the river and 
from the debris. See how distorted and swollen are 
the faces. They are beyond recognition. Some have 
great bruises. Some are covered with blood. Some 
are black. Turn your head away. Such a sight you 
never saw before and pray God that you may never 
see it again. Nearly 250 bodies have been handled 
in this school house. Outside once more for a breath 
of air ! Oh ! the delightful change. But you are not 
yet away from the horrors. There is a tent in the 
school yard. What do you see ? More coffins. Yes, 
and each one has a victim. Each is ready for ship- 
ment or burial. 

20,000 to be Fed. 

"Let's hurry along. Here on this corner is the 
temporary post-office. Over there is a supply station. 
There are eleven such departments now under the 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 475 

new management, and people are given not only pro- 
visions but clothing. You ought to see the women 
coming down from the hills in the morning for the 
supplies. Think of it ! There are at least twenty- 
thousand people in the flooded district to be fed for 
many weeks to come. You know there has been 
some comment becausfe in the past all the money has 
not been used for food. I think it is a mistake. 
Where is charity to cease ? In my opinion, the thing 
to do is to clean this town up, and give the business 
men and mills a chance to start up again. When this 
is done people can earn their own living, and charity 
ceases. I am backed up in this statement by Irwin 
Hurrell, who is a burgess of Johnstown, and knows 
everybody. Let me read you something from my 
note book that he said to me : 

" 'The people up in the hills have never had a better 
time. They won't work. They go around and get 
all the clothing they can and fill their houses with pro- 
visions.' 

Thieves and Idlers. 

"The burgess speaks the exact truth. Some of 
these houses are packed with flour and potatoes. 
The Hungarians and colored men and the " tin " 
deputies, now out of a job, have been the real thieves. 
They pulled trunks from the river, cut the locks and 
rifled them. There have been no professional thieves 
here. The thieves live here. Most of the respectable 
people were swept away by the flood, but nearly all 
the " toughs " were left. Now if I had my way I 



476 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

would make the survivors work. Some one said the 

other day : ' Why talk of sufferers ? there are no 

sufferers. They are all dead.' This is true in a great 

measure. It is not charity to keep in idleness people 

who have lost nothing and won't work. I'd hunt them 

out and put them at it. 

"Well, we will pass this supply depot, strike the 

Baltimore and Ohio track, and go up Stony Creek 

a bit. Notice the long lines of freight cars loaded 

\vith supplies. On our right runs the Httle river. On 

our left is Ward 7. I will note it as No. 8 on the map. 

You see there is a little stretch of plateau and then 

the ground rises rapidly. See what ravages the flood. 

made on the plateau. The houses are wrecked and 

filled with mud. The local name of this place is Hor- 

nertown. One man here had $60,000 in his house. It 

was wrecked. He dug away at the ruins and found 

$20,000. If we followed the stream up a mile or so 

we would come to the Stonyvale Cemetery. It is 

covered with loes and wrecks of houses. It was in 

one of these houses that the body of a woman was 

found last Saturday. She was sitting at a table. The 

house had floated here on the back water from down 

the river. 

Ked Cross Tents. 

" There, I guess we have walked far enough. Here 
are the tents of the Red Cross Society, and by the 
side of them are those of the United States engineers. 
The engineers have thrown a pontoon bridge over the 
river, you see, to a place called Kernville. Here you 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 477 

are, No. 9 on our little map. Let us cross. By- 
George ! there is an old man on the bridge I have seen 
before. He lost his wife and two children in the flood, 
but he ish't crying for them. What bothers him most 
is the loss of a clock, but in the clock was $1,600. 

" You see there is nothing new in Kernville. It is 
the same old story. Many lives have been lost here 
and the wreckage is something awful. The houses 
that remain are filled with mud and the ceilings still 
drip with water. People seem to have lost their 
senses. They are apparently paralyzed by their 
troubles. They sit around waiting for some one to 
come and clear the wreckage away. 

"Well, it is a terrible sight and we will hurry 
through the place and cross to Johnstown flat, over 
another pontoon bridge further down. It brings us 
out, as you see, near the main street again. Hello ! 
there is a man ; there is his name on the sign — Kra- 
mer, isn't it ? who is getting his grocery store open, 
the first in town. He was flooded, but carried some 
of his goods to an upper floor and saved them. 
Lucky Kramer ! Here is a man selling photographs 
on the porch of a doctor's office. Dr. Brinkey. Oh, 
yes, he was drowned. His body was found last Mon- 
day. 

"Well, we'll hurry by and get up to headquarters 
once more. It is 6 o'clock. See, the workmen are 
knocking off and are going to the river to wash up. 
Now, out comes the baseball, for recreation always 
follows work here. 



478 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

"Once more on the platform of the freight station. 
Dusk settles down over the valley. An engine near 
by begins to throb and electric lights spring up here 
and there. All over the town the flames of the great 
bonfires leap out of the gloom. From the camps of 
the workmen come ribald songs and jests. The pres- 
ence of death has no effect on the living. 

"The songs gradually die away and the singers 
drop off into a deep sleep. The town becomes as 
silent as the graveyards which have been filled with its 
victims. Not a sound is heard save the crackling of 
the flames and the challenges of the sentries to some 
belated newspaper man or straggler. 

"And thus another day draws to a close in ill-fated 
Johnstown." 



CHAPTER XIX. 
A. Day of Work and. Worshilp 

Governor Beaver has assumed the command. He 
arrived In Johnstown yesterday, the 8th, and will take 
personal charge of the work of clearing the town and 
river. For that purpose ^1,000,000 from the State 
Treasury will be made available immediately. This 
action means that the State will clear and clean the 
town. 

It was a day of prayer but not a day of rest in 
Johnstown. Faith and works went hand in hand. 
The flood-smitten people of the Conemaugh, though 
they met in the very path of the torrent that swept 
their homes and families into ruin, offered up their 
prayers to Almighty God and besought His divine 
mercy. But all through the ruin-choked city the 
sound of the pick and the shovel mingled with the 
voice of prayer, and the challenge of the sentinel rang 
out above the voice of supplication. There was no 
cessation in the great task the flood has left them with 
its legacy of v/oe. Four charges of dynamite last 
night completed the wreck of the Catholic Church of 
St. John, which had been left by the flood in a worth- 
less but dangerous condition. 

The thousands of laborers continued their work just 
as on any week day, except that there was no dyna- 

(479) 



480 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

mite used on the gorge and that the Cambria Iron 
Works were closed. There was the usual reward of 
the gleaners in the harvest-field of death, fifty eight 
bodies having been recovered. The most of those 
have been in Stony Creek, up which they were carried 
by the back i ush of the current after the bridge broke 
the first wave. 

Roman Catholic services were held in the open air. 
Father Smith's Exhortation. 

When the mass was over and Father Troutwine, who 
conducted it, had retired, Father Smith stood before 
them. "W^e have had enough of death lately," he 
said in a voice full of sympathy, "the calamity that has 
visited us is the greatest in die history of the United 
States. You must not be discouraged. Other places 
have been visited by disaster at times, yet we know 
that they have risen again. You must not look on the 
fearful past. The lives of the lost cannot be re- 
stored." 

Here he paused because they were weeping around 
him, and his own voice was broken, but continuing 
with an effort, he told them to reflect for consolation 
upon the manner in which their friends had gone to 
death. They had looked to God, he said, and wafted 
in prayers and acts of contrition, their souls had left 
their bodies and appeared at the throne in heaven. 
" Surely never such prayers fell save from the lips of 
saints, and the lost of the valley are saints to-day while 
you mourn for them. God, who measures the acts of 
men by their opportunities, had pardoned their sins. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 481 . 

You who are left living must go to work with a will. 
Be men, be women. The eyes of the world are upon 
you, the eyes of all civilized nature. They listen, they 
wait to see what you are going to do." 

Father Smith closed by telling them that the coming 
fast days of this week need not be observed in the 
midst of such destitution as this, and they might eat 
without sinning any food that would give them life and 
strength. When the father had finis'hed the congrega-. 
tion filed "slowly out past the high pile of coffins, for 
St. Columba's was a morgue in the days just passed. , 
The Protestant Services. 

Chaplain Maguire held service in the camp of tlie 
14th to-day. His pulpit was a drygoods box with 
the lid missing. It had been emptied of its freight 
into the wide lap of suffering. Before him stood the 
blue-coated guardsmen in a deep half circle. There 
was a shed at his back and a group of flood survivors, 
some in old clothing of their own, some in the new 
garments of charity. They were for the most part. 
members of the Methodist congregation of Johnstown, 
to which he had preached for three years. 

" I hunted a long time yesterday for the foundations 
of my little home," he said, "but they were swept 
away, like the dear faces of the friends who used to 
gather around my table. But God doesn't own this 
side alone ; He owns the other side too, and all is well 
whether we are on this side or the other. Are your 
dear ones saved or lost ? The only answer to that 
question is found in whether they trusted in God or 
31 



482 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

not. Trust in the Lord and verily ye shall dwell in the 
land and be fed." 

It was not a sermon. Nobody had words or voice 
for preaching. Others spoke briefly and prayed. They 
sang, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul." 

A Song- iu the Waters. 

The shrill treble of the weeping women in the shed 
was almost lost in the strong bass of the soldiers. 
*• Cora Moses, who used to sing in our church choir, 
sang that beautiful hymn as she drifted away to her 
death amid the wreck," said the chaplain. " She died 
singing it. There was only the crash of buildings 
between the interruption of the song of earth and its 
continuation in heaven." 

Dr. Beale's Address. 

Dr. Beale, whose own Presbyterian Church was one 
of the first morgues opened and who has lived among 
dead bodies ever since is the cheeriest man in Johns- 
town. He made a prayer and an address. It was all 
straight-from-the-shoulder kind of talk, garbed in 
homely phrase. 

In the address he said : " I have been asked to say 
something about this disaster and its magnitude, but I 
haven't the heart. Besides I haven't the words. If I 
was the biggest truth teller in the world I could not 
tell the tale." 

Then the preacher went hammer and tongs at the 
practical teachings of the flood. " That night in Alma 
Hall when we thought we w^ould all die I heard-men 
call on God in prayer and pledge them.selves to lead 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

better lives if life was given them. Since then I heard 
those same men cursing and swearing in these streets. 
Brethren, there was no real prayer in any of thos« 
petitions put up by those of godless lives that night. 
They were merely crying out to a higher power for 
protection. They were like the death-bed fears of the 
infidel, for I have seen seventeen infidels die an<i 
everyone showed the white feather. Nay, those 
prayers were unsanctified by the spirit, but let us who 
are here now living, dedicate ourselves to the service 
of Almighty God. There were those who were to be 
dedicated that night. I know one who, when it came, 
sent his family up the staircase, and taking up His 
Bible from his parlor table, opened at the 46th 
Psalm, first verse, and, following them, read, and the 
waters followed him closely. And through the flood 
he read the word of God and there was peace in that 
house while terror was all around it. 

Mothering' the Orphans. 

Dr. Beale announced that Miss Walk wanted twen- 
ty-five children for the Northern Home and then be- 
gan shaking hands with his congregation and pressing 
on them the lessons of his sermon. "Ah, old friend,'* 
he said, to a sandy moustached man in the grand army 
uniform, **You came safe out of the flood, now give 
that big heart of yours to Jesus." 

The Baptist congregation also held an open-air ser- 
vice. The unfortunate Episcopal congregation is quit€ 
disorganized by the loss of their church and rector. 
They held no service, yet in a hundred temporary 



4S3 . THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

houses of the homeless the beautiful old litany of the 
feith was read by the devout churchmen. 
The Soldiers' Sunday. 

Sunday brought to the soldiers of the 14th no rest 
from the guard t and police work which makes the 
Johnstown tour of duty everything but holiday soldier 
mg. Even those who were in camp fared no better 
than those who were mounted guards over banks, 
^ores and supply trains, or driving unwilling Italians 
to work down at Cambria City. There was no shade 
nor a blade of grass in sight. The wreck of the city 
was all their scenery, and the sun beat down upon 
flieir tents till they were like ovens. They policed the 
C3cmp thoroughly, sweeping the bare ground until it 
was as clean as a Dutch kitchen. The boys had heard 
that Chaplain Magulre was to preach and they didn't 
leave a straw or a chip in his way. 

A Youngr Guardsman's Suicide. 

A sun-browned young soldier of C Company, 14th 
Regiment, sat on the river bank in front of the camp 
this afternoon and watched across the valley the fire- 
scarred tower of the Catholic Church, blown to com- 
plete ruin under the force of dynamite. After the 
front had sunk into a brick heap, he arose, look- 
ed down once at the sunny river and the groups of 
many soldiers doing there week's washing at the foot^ 
o£ the bank, and then strode slowly to his tent. A 
moment later there seemed to be a lingering echo of 
the fall of the tower in C Company's street. Captain 
Nesbitt, dozing in his quarters, heard the sound, and 




(485) 



486 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

ninning In the direction of it found that Private 
William B. Young, , aged 28, of Oakdale, had placed 
the muzzle of his rifle against his left temple and gone 
to swell by one the interminable list of the Conemaugh 
Valley's dead. 

Despondency, caused by a slight illness and doubt- 
less intensified by a night's guard duty among the 
gloomy ruins, is the only known cause of the soldier's 
act He had been somewhat blue for a day, but there 
seemed to be no special weight upon his mind. His 
brother-in-law, private Stimmler, of the same com- 
pany, said that he was always despondent when ill, 
But had never threatened or attempted his life. He 
was a farmhand, and leaves a wife and two children. 
The Dinner **SIiad" Jones Cooked. 

The Sunday dinner was a great success. The bill 
of fare was vegetable soup, cold ham, beans, canned 
corn, pickled tripe and black coffee. It is worthy of 
rrote that the table in the officers' quarters did not 
have a delicacy upon it which was not shared by the 
men. The commissary ran short and had to borrow 
fi-om the workmen's supplies. The dinner to-day was 
cooked by " Shad " Jones, a colored man known to 
every traveling man who has ever stopped at Johns- 
town for his, ability to hold four eggs in his mouth and 
swallow a drink of water without cracking a shell. 
He lost his wife in the flood and the 14th has adopted 
him. 

On this, the ninth day, the waters began to give up 
their dead. Stony Creek first showed their white 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 487 

faces and lifeless bodies floating on the surface, and 
men In skiffs went after them with their grappling- 
rods. Several of them were taken ashore during the 
afternoon and carried to the -Presbyterian Church 
morgue, Vv^hich was the nearest. Then, too, the dead 
among the wreckage on shore came to light just the 
same as on other days. Their exhumation excites no 
notice here now. Dr. Beale, keeper of the records of 
morgues, counted the numbers on his finger tips and 
said there were more than fifty found to-day In Johns- 
town alone. 

In one dead man's pocket was ^3, 133.62. He was 
Christopher Kimble, an undertaker and finisher, who, 
when he saw the water coming, rushed down stairs to 
the safe to save his gold and there he was lost. 
Several bodies were taken from the human raft 
burned beyond all recognition. 

The body of Miss Bessie Bryan, the young Phlla-. 
delphian, was identified to-day as it lay in a coffin by a 
grave from which it had been exhumed In Grand View 
Cemetery. ''Returning home from a wedding In 
Pittsburgh with her friend, Miss Paulsen, caught by 
the flood on the day express, found dead and buried 
twice," will be the brief record of her wild sad fate. 
"WMskey and Kioting-. 

Lieutenant Wright, Company I, with a detail of 
ninety-eight men, was called to the banks of Stony 
Creek over the raft to-night, to protect the employees 
of the Philadelphia Gas Company. There they found 
a gang of rioters. The rioters this afternoon found a 



488 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

barrel of whiskey in the field of debris, and before the 
militia could destroy it they had managed to take a 
large quantity of it up on the mountain. To-night 
they came down to the camp intoxicated, attacked the 
cook, cleared the supper table and were managing 
things with a high hand when a messenger was des- 
patched for the guard. Before Lieutenant Wright's 
men reached there they had escaped. The Beaver 
Falls gang was surprised this afternoon by the militia, 
and gallons of whiskey, which they had hidden, were 
destroyed, A dozen saloons were swept into the 
creek at the bridge, and it is supposed that a hundred 
or more barrels are buried beneath the raft, 

Amonof the most interestinsf relics of the flood is a 
small gold locket found in the ruins of the Hurlbut 
house yesterday. The locket contains a small coil of 
dark brown hair, and has engraved on the inside the 
following remarkable lines: "Lock of George Wash- 
ington's hair, cut in Philadelphia while on his way to 
Yorktown, 1781." Mr. Benford, one of the proprie- 
tors of the house, states that the locket was the 
property of his sister, who was lost in the flood, and 
was presented to her by an old lady in Philadelphia, 
whose mother and herself cut the hair from the 
head of the " Father of His Country." 



CHAPTER XX. 
Millions of WLoney for Johinstown. 

Never before in our country has there been such a 
magnificent exhibition of pubHc sympathy and prac- 
tical charity. As the occasion was the most urgent 
ever known, so the response has been the greatest. 
All classes have come to the rescue with a generosity, 
a thoughtfulness and heartfelt pity sufficient to con- 
vince the most stubborn misanthrope that religion Is 
not dead and charity has not, like the fabled gods of 
Greece, forsaken the earth. 

The following lines, cut from one of our popular 
journals, aptly represents the public feeling, and the 
warm sympathy that moved every heart : 

I. 

I stood v.'itii a mournfi.il throng 

Oil the brink of a gluomy grave. 
In a val'ey where grief had found relief 

On the breast of an angry wave ! 
I heard a tearlul song 

That told of an orphan's love — 
'Twas a song of woe from the valley below, 

To the Father of Heaven above 1 

II. 
'Twas the wail of two lonely waifs — 

Two children who prayed fur bread ! 
'Twas a piiifu! cry — a mournful sigh — 

From the home of the silent dead ! 
'Twas a sad and soulful strain : 

It made the teardrops start ; 
'Twns an echo of pain — a weird refrain — 

And a song that touched my heart. 
(489) 



490 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR, 

III. 
Poor, fatherless, motherless waifs, 

Come, dry your tearful eyes ! 
Not in vain, not in vain, have ye sung your refrain; 

It's echo has pierced the skies ! 
The angels are watching: you there, 

For your " home " is now above, 
And your Father is He who forever shall be 

A Father of infinite love ! 

IV. 

Blest be the noble throng. 

With generous impulse stirred. 
Who are bringing relief to the Valley of Grief, 

Where the orphan's song was heard ! 
Peace to them while they live, 

Peace when their souls depart. 
For a friend in need is a friend indeed 

And a friend that reaches my heart ! 

Among the first to start a fund for the sufferers was 
the New York Herald. The following is a specimen of 
the announcement made by that journal from day to day: 

Great interest is being taken in the Herald fund for 
the Johnstown sufferers. In the city, employees of all 
sorts of business houses, and of railroad, steamboat 
and other companies, are striving to see who can 
collect the most money. 

In the country, ministers, little girls, school children 
and busy workers are all collecting for the fund. It 
is being boomed by rich and poor, far and near. 

With the checks for hundreds of dollars yesterday 
came this note, enclosing a dime : 

•* New York, June 8, 1889. 
" Mr. Editor : 

" I am a little orphan girl. I saved ten cents, it is 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 491 

all I have, but I should like to send it to the sufferers 

of the flood. 

*'y\NNiE Abel." 

Another letter written in a lady's hand read this 

way : 

*'Brookyn. 
" Dear Herald: — 

"Enclosed please find $1.17 left by little Hame 
Buckler in his purse when he died last September. 
Also twenty-five cents from Albert Buckler and twen- 
ty-five cents from Paul D. Buckler. Hoping their 
mites will help to feed or clothe some little ones, I am, 
with sympathy for the sufferers, 

"S. A. B." 

Felix Simonson, a twelve-year-old schoolboy, took 
it into his head on Friday to go among his friends and 
get help for the sufferers. Here is what he wrote on 
the top of his subscription paper : 

"I am very sorry for the poor people who have lost 
everything by the flood, and I am trying to collect 
some money to send to them. Would you like to give 
something to help them ? " 

How Felix succeded is shown by a collection of 
^30.15 the first day. 

A large amount of clothing for men, wom^en and 
children is being sent to the Herald office, as well as 
liberal contributions of money. 

The same story was, in effect, repeated from day to 
day. It only indicated what was going on throughout 
the country ; in fact, throughout the world. London, 



492 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

Paris, and other European towns, were only a few 
hours behind our American cities in starting funds for 
relief. The enthusiasm with which these responses 
were made Is indicated by the following from one of 
the New York dailies : 

Charity Kunning' Kampant. 

Everybody's business seems to be raising funds for 
Pennsylvania. The Mayor's office has been trans- 
formed into a countinof room. More than a dozen 
clerks are employed in acknowledging the receipt of 
money for the Pennsylvania sufferers. A large num- 
ber, many of them of the poorer class, bring their own 
contributions. Up to noon ^145,257.18 had been 
subscribed. This does not include sums subscribed 
but not paid In. All the city departments are ex- 
pected to respond nobly. 

The Executive Committee of the Conemaugh 
Valley Relief Association met in the Governor's room 
at the City Hall yesterday, with General W. T. Sher- 
man in the chair. Treasurer J. Edward Simmons 
announced that the fund In the Fourth National Bank 
amounted to ^145,000 and that Governor Beaver's 
draft for ^50,000 had been honored, John T. Crim- 
mins reported that more than ^70,000 had been re- 
ceived at the Mayor's office during the morning. He 
also reported that the Leake and Watts Orphan 
Asylum had offered, through the Rev. Dr. Morgan 
Dix, to take twenty-five of Johnstown's orphans, be- 
tween the ages of five and twelve, and care for them 
until they were sixteen and then provide them with 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 493 

homes. H. C. Miner reported that many packages of 
clothing had been sent to Johnstown and that the 
theatrical guild was arranging for benefit performances. 

Under date of Paris, June 5th, the following despatch 
conveyed intelligence of the gratifying response of 
Americans in that city: 

Duty 2i^obly Done. 

A meeting of Americans was held to-day at the 
United States Leo;ation on a call in the morninof 
papers by Mr. Whitelaw Reid, the United States Min- 
ister, to express the sympathy of the Americans in 
Paris with the sufferers by the Johnstown calamity. 
In spite of the short notice the rooms of the Legation 
were densely packed, and many went away unable to 
gain admittance. Mr. Reid was called to the chair 
and Mr. Ernest Lambert was appointed secretary. 
The following resolutions were offered by Mr. Andrew 
Carnegie and seconded by Mr. James N. Otis : 
A Sympathetic Messagre. 

"Resolved, Thatv/e send across the Atlantic to our 
brethren overwhelmed by the appalling disaster at 
Johnstown our most profound and heartfelt sympathy. 
Over their lost ones we mourn with them, and in every 
pang of all their misery we have our part. 

" Resolved, That as American citizens we congratu- 
late them upon and thank them for the numerous acts 
of noble heroism displayed under circumstances cal- 
culated to unnerve the bravest. Especially do we 
honor and admire them for the capacity shown for 
local self-government upon which the stability of 



494 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. ' 

republican institutions depends, the military organiza- 
tions sent from distant points to preserve order during 
the chaos that supervened having heen returned to 
their homes as no longer required within forty-eight 
hours of the calamity. In these few hours the civil 
power recreated and asserted itself and resumed sway 
without the aid of counsel from distant authorities, 
but solely by and from the inherent power which re- 
mains in the people of Johnstovv^n themselves." 

Brief and touching speeches were made by General 
Layton, late United States Minister to Austria ; Mr. 
Abram S. Hewitt, General IMeredith Read and others. 
A Flow of Dollars. 

The resolutions were then unanimously adopted and 
a committee was appointed to receive subscriptions. 
About 4o,ooof. were subscribed on the spot. The 
American bankers all agreed to open subscriptions the 
next day at their banking houses. "Buffalo Bill" 
subscribed the entire receipts of one entertainment to 
be given under the auspices of the committee. 

As a sequel to the foregoing the following will be of 
interest to the reader : 

New York, June 1 7. — John Monroe & Co. have 
received cable instructions from United States Minis- 
ter Reid, at Paris, to pay Messrs. Drexel & Co., cf 
Philadelphia, an additional sum of ^2,266, received 
from the Treasurer of the Paris Johnstown Relief 
Committee. Of this sum ;^io66 are the proceeds of a 
special performance by the Wild West show, and with 
the previous contribution from Paris makes a total of 
$14,166. 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 



495 



The pathetic story of sympathy and g-enerous aid 
from every town and hamlet in the land can never be 
told ; there is too much of it. 

Philadelphia alone contributed over a million dol- 
lars, and Nev/ York showed equal generosity. In 
Philadelphia it was not uncommon to see glass jars in 
front of stores and at other places to receive con- 




CONTRIBUTING TO THE RELIEF FUND !N PHILADELPHIA. 

tributions from passers-by. In one of these an 
unknown man deposited $500 one day ; this is indica- 
tive of the feeling pervading the whole community that 
stricken Johnstown must not suffer for houses, cloth- 
ing, nor bread. 

So rapidly did gifts pour in that within eight days 
after the disaster the following statement was made 
from Harrisburg: 



496 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

The Governor's fund for the relief of the survivors 
of the flood In the Conemaugh Valley and other por- 
tions of the State Is assuming large proportions and 
the disposition to contribute appears to be on the In- 
crease. To-day letters and telegrams were received 
requesting the Governor to draw for ^68,000 addi- 
tional, swelling the aggregate sum at his disposal to 
about ^3,000,000. Many of the remittances are ac- 
companied with statements that more may be expected. 
Governor Beaver telegraphed as follows from Johns- 
town : 

"The situation Is simply Indescribable. The people 
have turned In with courage and heroism unparalleled. 
A decided Impression has been made on the debris. 
The next week will do more, as they have many points 
opened for work. Everything is very quiet. People 
are returning to work again and gaining courage and 
hope as they return. There need be no fear of too 
much being contributed for the relief of the people. 
There is a long, steady pull ahead requiring every 
effort and determination on the part of the people here, 
■which is already assured, and the continued systematic 
support and benefactions of this generous people." 
Fecdlnjy the Hungry. 

Three car loads of tents, enough to accommodate 
four thousand people, were sent to Johnstown to-day 
from the State arsenal at the request of General 
Hastings. 

The following special dispatch bears date of June 
5tli: 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 407 

Car loads of provisions and clothing are arriving 
hourly and being distributed. The cynic who said 
that charity and gratitude were articles seldom to be 
met with In Republics and among corporations would 
have had ample reason afforded him to-day to alter his 
warped philosophy several degrees had he been in this 
erstwhile town and seen train after train hourly roll- 
ing in, on both the Baltimore and Ohio and the 
Pennsylvania railroads, laden with clothing and pro- 
visions from every point of the compass. Each train 
bore messengers sent especially to distribute funds and 
provisions and clothing, volunteer physicians In large 
numbers, trained nurses and a corps of surgeons 
equipped with all needed instruments and medicines. 
Fortunately the latter are not needed. 

Philadelphia's quota consists of clothes, boots, shoes, 
cotton sheeting, hard breads, salt fish, canned goods, 
etc., all of which will be gratefully received and supply 
the most pressing needs of the stricken peoole. 
Relief Systematized. 

The relief work has been so systematized that there 
is no danger of any confusion. At the several dis- 
tributing depots hundreds assemble morning, noon 
and night, and, forming In line, are supplied with pro- 
visions. ' Men and women with families are given 
bread, butter, cheese, ham. and canned meats, tea or 
coffee and sugar, and unmarried applicants sliced 
bread and butter or sandwiches. 

The 900 army tents brought on by Adjutant- 
General Axllne, of Ohio, have been divided, and two 
32 



498 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

white-walled villages now afford shelter to nearly six 
thousand homeless people. 

At the Main Commissary. 

At the Johnstown station, on the east side of the 
river, everything is quiet, and considerable work is 
being dqne. This is the chief commissary station, 
and this morning by two o'lock 15,000 people were 
fed and about six hundred families were furnished 
with provisions. Five carloads of clothing were dis- 
tributed, and now almost every one is provided with 
clothing. 

The good work done by the relief committees in 
caring for the destitute can never be fully told. It 
was ready, generous and very successful. 

The scenes at the distributing points through the 
week have been most interesting. Monday and Tues- 
day saw lines of men, women and children in the 
scantiest of clothing, blue v/ith cold, unwashed and dis- 
hevelled, so pitifully destitute a company as one would 
wish to see. Since the clothing cars have come the 
people have assumed a more presentable appearance 
and food has brought life back to them and warmth, 
but their condition is still pitiful. The destitute ones 
are almost altogether from the well-to-do people of 
Johnstown, who have lost all and are as poor as the 

poorest. 

Altoona to the Rescue. 

Altoona has been so hemmed in by floods and the 
Kke, and her representatives have been so busy, that 
they had but little to say of the prompt action and ex- 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 499 

cellent work done by open-handed citizen>s of that 
beautiful interior Pennsylvania city. Altoona first 
became alarmed by the non-arrival and reported loss 
of the day express east on the Pennsylvania Railroad 
Friday afternoon. Soon the station was thronged 
with an anxious crowd, and the excitement became 
intense as the scant news came slowly in. Saturday 
the anxiety was relieved by a telegram from Ebens- 
burg, which a blundering telegraph operator made 
"three hundred lost," instead of "three thousand." 
That was soon corrected by later news, and the citl^ 
zens immediately were called upon to meet for 
action. The Mayor presided, and at once ^2,600 
was subscribed and provisions offered. By three 
o'clock that afternoon a car had been loaded and 
started for Ebensburg, thirty- two miles away in 
charge of a committee. At Ebensburg that evening 
ten teams were secured after much trouble and the 
supplies sent overland seventeen miles to the deso- 
lated valley. The night was an awful one for thie 
committee in charge. The roads were badly washed 
and all but impassible. The hours dragged on. At 
last, Sunday morning, the wagons drove into desolate 
Conemaugh. There were no cheers to greet tliem, 
no cries of pleasure. The wretched sufferers were too 
wretched, too dazed for that. They simply crowded 
around the wagons, pitifully begging for bread or any- 
thing to eat. 

The committee report : " Impostors have not both- 
ered us much, and, singular enough, the ones that 



500 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

have were chiefly women, though to-day we sent away 
a' man who we thought came too frequently. On 
questioning he owned up to having fifteen sacks of 
flour and five hams in his house. On Tuesday we 
began to keep a record of those who received sup- 
plies, and we have given out supplies to fully 550 
families, representing 2,500 homeless people. Our 
district is only for one side of the river. On the other 
is a commissary on Adams street, near the Baltimore 
and Ohio Railway station, another at Kernville, a third 
at Cambria City, a fourth at Morrellville and a fifth at 
Cambria. The people are very patient, though, of 
course, in their present condition they are apt to be 
querelous. 

Wanted A Better Dress. 

" One woman who came for a dress indignantly re- 
fused the one I offered her." 'I don't want that,' she 
said. *I lost one that cost me ^20, ^15 for the clodi 
and ^5 for making, and I want a "^20 dress. You said 
you would make our losses good ;' and she did not 
take the dress. 

" A clergyman came to me and begged for anything 
in the shape of foot covering. I had nothing to give 
him. Men stand about ready to work, but barefooted. 
The clothing since the first day or two, when. we got 
only worn stuff, fit only for bandages, has been good, 
and is now of excellent quality. Most of the chil- 
dren's garments are outgrown clothes, good for much 
service. Pittsburgh has sent from thirty to forty car 
loads of supplies, all of good quality and available, and 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 501 

in charge of local commissary men who had sense 
enough to go home when they turned over their sup- 
plies and did not stay and eat up the provisions they 
brought. 

Ohio's Timely Work. 

" But above all, I want to praise the supplies sent by 
the Ohio people in Cleveland and Columbus. These 
cities forwarded eight cars each. These were stocked 
with beautiful stuff, wisely chosen, and were in charge 
of Adjutant General Axline, sent by Governor Fora- 
ker, who worked like a wise man." 

Grave Mental Conditions. 

The mental condition of almost every former res- 
ident of Johnstown is one of the gravest character, 
and the reaction which will set in when the reality of 
the whole affair is fully comprehended can scarcely 
fail to produce many cases of permanent or temporary 
insanity. Most of the faces that one meets, both male 
and female, are those of the most profound melan- 
cholia, associated with an almost absolute disregard of 
the future. The nervous system shows the strain it 
has borne by a tremulousness of the hand and of the 
lip in man as well as in woman. This nervous state is 
further evidenced by a peculiar intonation of words, 
the persons speaking mechanically, while the voices of 
many rough looking men are changed into such trem- 
ulous notes of so high a pitch as to make one Imagine 
that a child on the verge of tears is speaking. Crying 
is so rare that I saw not a tear on any face in Johns- 
town, but the women that are left are haggard, with 



502 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

pinched features and heavy, dark lines under their 
v,yes. Indeed the evidence of systemic disturbance is 
so marked in almost every individual who was present 
at the time of the catastrophe that it is possible with 
the eye alone to separate the residents from those 
outside. 

Everything required in the way of surgical appli- 
ances seem to be on hand, but medicines are scarce, 
and will probably be needed more in the next few 
days than heretofore. 

A fact in favor of the controlling of any malady is 
to be found in the very general exodus of the town's 
people, who crowd the platforms of departing trains. 
There can be no doubt that this movement should be 
encouraged to the greatest possible extent, and it 
would be well if places away from Johnstown, at no 
too great distance, could be opened for the reception 
of those who, while not entirely disabled, are useless 
at home. The scarcity of pure spring water which is 
not tainted by dead animal matter is a pressing evil 
for consideration, but we doubt if this is as important 
a fact at Johnstown as it is further down the river, 
owing to the large amount of decomposing flesh in the 
water at this latter point. No disinfectant can reach 
such a cause of disease save the action of the large 
volume of water which dilutes all poisonous materials. 
The Torch for Safety. 

There is a strong movement on foot in favor of ap- 
plying the torch to the wrecked buildings in Johns- 
town, and although the suggestion meets with strong 



THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 603 

opposition at this time, there is little doubt the ultimate 
solution of existing difficulties will be by this method. 
An army of men have been for two days employed in 
clearing up the wreck in the city proper, and although 
hundreds of bodies have been discovered, not one- 
fifth of the ground has yet been gone over. In many 
places the rubbish is piled twent)' or thirty feet high, 
and not infrequently these great drifts cover an area 
of nearly an acre. Narrow passages have been cut 
through in every direction, but the herculean labor of 
removing the rubbish has yet hardly begun. 

At a meeting of the Central Relief Committee this 
afternoon General Hastings suggested the advisability 
of drawing a cordon around the few houses that are 
not in ruins and applying the torch to the remaining 
great sea of waste. He explained briefly the great 
work yet to be accomplished if it were hoped to 
thoroughly overhaul every portion of the debris, and 
insisted that it would take 5,000 men to complete 
die task. Of the hundreds of bodies buried beneath 
the rubbish, sand and stones, the skeleton or putrid 
remains of many was all that could be hoped to be 
recovered. 

A motion was made that after forty-eight hours' 
further search the debris of the city be consumed by 
fire, the engines to be on hand to play upon any valu- 
able building that despite previous precautions, might 
become ignited by the general conflagration. This 
motion was debated pro and con for nearly half an 
hour. Those whose relatives or friends stlH rest be- 



604 THE JOHNSTOWN HORROR. 

neath the wreck remonstrated strongly against any 
such summary action. They insisted that all the talk 
of threatened epidemic was only the sensation gossip 
of fertile brains and that the search for the bodies 
should only be abandoned as a last extremity. The 
physicians in attendance warned the committee that 
the further exposure of putrid bpdies in the valley 
could have but one result — the typhus or some other 
epidemic equally fatal to its victims. It was a question 
whether the living should be sacrificed to the dead, 
or whether the sway of sentiment or the mandate of 
science should be the ruling impulse. Although the 
proposition to burn the wreck was defeated, it was 
evident that the movement was gaining many adher- 
ents, and the result will doubtless be that in a few 
days the torch will be applied, not only to the field of 
waste in Johnstown, but also to the avalanche of debris 
that chokes the stream above the Pennsylvania bridge. 



